


An Innocent Lady of the Night

by Melisane123



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dubious Consent, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2019-08-03 17:15:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16330241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melisane123/pseuds/Melisane123
Summary: After her father’s company is seized and her father held for fraud, timid Sansa Stark has gotten her first job as a front desk clerk at an elite hotel in one of the Summer Isles for summer vacation in order to pay for her upcoming college fees. When stuntman Sandor arrives to stay at the hotel with a working crew, a case of mistaken identity leads to complications...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well finally decided to take the leap and post one of my SanSan stories after being an avid reader only. A little plot and a whole lotta smut... it is what it is. Not beta'd so all mistakes are mine.
> 
> P.S.: There is a situation in this first chapter that may be a trigger as there is implied dubious consent.

Nerves bubbled in her throat when the crew piled into the lobby. Sansa shoved her writing manuscript away in her purse and straightened up.

They were expecting the large filming crew for days and tonight had been quiet so it was a surprise they’d finally made it. The odd mix of glamorous executives and workmen headed straight for the front desk where Sansa Stark tried her best not to fidget. She grasped the edge of the counter instead where no one but Pod could see her trembling hand. Despite her more experienced co-worker’s reassuring smile, Sansa could not stifle her apprehension. She was new to this job and she couldn’t screw it up. The manager had decided to give her a chance despite her complete lack of experience. Now this would be her true test, to handle such a large entourage.  
It won’t be so bad, she told herself. Most of the men in the group looked a sophisticated sort, with their wives clutching their jacketed arms and that calmed her somewhat. She smiled and hoped she didn’t look as intimidated as she felt.

Much to her relief booking the new guests into their suite of rooms went easier than she first thought. Sansa shook her head. I really need to get out there more.

She’d been a sheltered child, the only daughter and the youngest after two boys with two other younger brothers. A true middle child. After father lost his company, she’d already been accepted into UW, the premier university in Westeros but there had been no funds left to pay for her tuition, not after the Fraud Squad had frozen all their accounts. She’d gone through dozens of job interviews but no one was willing to hire a girl freshly out of secondary school with absolutely no job experience. Her father’s old business acquaintances would not even look at her. All she had to do was mention her surname and the inevitable questions followed. I still can’t believe Father would commit such fraud. Her mother didn’t believe it either but instead of facing the world she chose to hide in shame behind the closed doors of the shabby, decrepit town-house they’d been forced to move into. Her mother only emerged to visit father in the penitentiary.  
The group of executives and their wives made for the grand spiraled staircase as Pod directed the concierge to carry up their luggage. Blowing out a held in breath, Sansa turned back to the desk.

And leapt back with a strangled gasp.

Standing in front of the huge polished counter was an even huger man. Long tousled dark hair hid most of his face and what she could see of his jaw was covered in thick stubble. But it was his eyes that scared her. He was leering down at her, his gaze menacing and glinting in the shimmering chandelier of the lobby. Pod was still dealing with a few queries on the telephone so Sansa forced herself to smile through her perfunctory greeting.

“Good night, sir. Do you have a reservation?”

The giant man snorted. “If I did, this doll house would be the last bluidy place I’d book. But tell me, little doll, do you always stare at guests as if they were some monster out to eat you?”

“I-I’m sorry. You startled me, is all.”

“Figured I might. No doubt, I’m not one of the pretty peacocks you’re accustomed to seeing strutting in here.”

Sansa lowered her eyes from his piercing stare. “How may I help you, sir?”

“Don’t call me that, girl.” the man snapped.

“Of course, s-…um…”

He laughed, a deep snarl that made her swallow nervously. For a moment she was reminded of the ferocious growls of the huge bulls that grazed the wild meadows surrounding her father’s old lands in Winterfell. Sansa was deadly afraid of the creatures and anytime she’d venture out for walks through the meadow with her brothers, she’d steer far from them, pleading with her mischievous siblings not to tease the beasts. She sort of felt that way now, a shivery fear tingling within her yet at the same time she thought that she had somehow inadvertently teased this intimidating man. Maybe it was the way he’d told her not to call him sir and then the slight curl of his lip and the hint of amusement in his eyes after he’d reprimanded her.

Sansa glanced over at Pod who was still busy organizing the requests of the large group of guests. The giant man heaved out a rasping breath, slapping a heavy hand down on the divider between them with a thud.

“Yes, doll, I do have a room booked at this bluidy doll house but I’m not inclined to head there just yet. They’ve dismissed this old dog for the rest of the evening. I came with that fancy-schmancy group just now.”

His eyes were shadowed as he faced away from the glittering lights of the chandelier but still Sansa did not miss the way he let his gaze dart over her. It was a quick once-over but the effect of his thorough stare lingered like the heat of an overly large scarf.

He leaned forward on the counter, his face looming a little closer. It was then she saw the deep red scars covering the right side of his face. Sansa quickly averted her eyes, wary of offending the huge man before her.

“I’ll take this pretty mug of mine away soon enough, little doll. Just point me the direction of whatever passes for a bar in this doll house.”

Sansa gave him the requisite directions, trying to picture this great brute of a man in the elegant Victorian styled bar room.

“Thanks, doll.” He smiled but it was more a cruel twist of his lips. His gaze seemed mocking to her and that realization made annoyance bloom within her.

“No problem, sir.”

He tilted his head at her. The gesture reminding her of her beloved pet hound for an instant, lost to her just as her previous life was.

“Not many people would call me sir after I expressly told them not to.”

“And not many people would call one of the staff a little doll, either. At least, not polite people.”

Sansa swiftly covered her mouth, shocked at her boldness. She did not know what overcame her to blurt that out. Guaranteed the man was infuriating regardless of his daunting size but still, he was a guest here and she was new on the job. She could hear the manager Varys again in his stern sing-song voice. Always remember, dear, the guest is always right!  
But the giant man merely smirked at her, casting her a quick dismissive glance before he strode off in the direction of the bar.  
~  
Sansa was intimidated then rankled at first by Sandor’s brutishness but she soon forgot all about him. That is until she saw him the next day on the beach when Varys entrusted her to deliver a pile of beach towels to the lounge boy. He was surrounded by crewmen and it appeared they were in the midst of filming some stunts but what really caught her attention was the fact that he was bare-chested, skin already tanned and gleaming in the sun and she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the amount of hair the giant man had on his massive chest. Sansa blushed and swiftly looked away before anyone caught her looking at the great brute and returned to her front desk post as fast as humanly possible.

Much to her discomfort, Sansa couldn’t get the sight of him out of her mind for the rest of her shift. He was miles away from the kind of boys she fancied, pretty boys that resembled those slender ephemerally beautiful Adonis statues. The kind of boys she wrote about in her secret cache of fairytales of chivalrous protagonists with sensitive souls.  
This giant man with his gruff attitude was the kind of man she would usually steer clear of.

She didn’t see him again until next evening for her late shift. He was striding through the sleek lobby doors with a group of his co-crew workers. He towered head and shoulders over every man there and for a brief moment, she thought of how he towered over her. And how he’d annoyed her when he’d called her a little doll. No one had ever called Sansa little anything since her fourteenth birthday. She was a tall girl, her height taken from tall grandmothers from both parents’ sides. At almost six feet and standing eye to eye with her father and oldest brother, she rarely had the opportunity to look up into any man’s eyes.

  
Except this giant stuntman.

She saw him a couple times after that week, always on her late shift when he came in with his crew from work but after their first abrasive encounter, the giant man seemed to ignore her. She’d tried to find out what his name was once from the guest folders but Pod was always there and to rifle through guest information wasn’t in her job description.  
When he strode by with the rest of the crew that evening, she quickly averted her eyes, hating the heat that she could feel on her cheeks. Yet Sansa couldn’t deny that the rude, rough looking man intrigued her.

~

It was the end of a grueling five-day stunt filming and Sandor had wrapped up most of his takes. That evening, the rest of the crew was eager to explore and sample the Isle’s many pleasures and nightlife.  
All Sandor wanted to do was head back to his room, have a shower and a couple drinks to wind down.

And await his guest.

He’d already selected her from a pretty impressive line-up. He was a man of simple pleasures and two vices. Fucking and drinking.

Sandor rolled his tense shoulders and cracked his neck as he strode through the lobby, vaguely aware of the bustling buzz of the hotel. It’s really busy this evening, he thought absently. Before he could move to the stairs (he preferred jogging up there than be cloistered in this hotel’s doll-house elevator) his phone vibrated in his pocket.  
Fishing the mobile out, he answered without looking at the screen knowing it could only be one of the crew guys or the people at the agency calling to confirm when his guest would be here. What Sandor wasn’t expecting to hear was his brother’s voice.

“Hey there, baby brother. Just calling to invite you to my wedding.”

“What would this be, the third?” Sandor managed to rasp over the cold sweat that had broken out on his brow.

His brother laughed, a sound that sent chills down his spine. “You know the drill. I expect you to be there, little brother. You'll be hearing from me real soon after I fetch my bride. ”

He clicked off. Sandor allowed the phone to numbly slip from his hand back into his trouser pocket. Taking an impromptu detour, he veered towards the little bar where he proceeded to get stunningly and thoroughly drunk.

It was just a few minutes later, and it was amazing how much alcohol he could put away in a mere few minutes, when he remembered the woman would be coming soon and so he stumbled his way to his room…  
He still needed more. More drink and his lady of the night. He decided to order more alcohol to be brought up to his room.  
~  
It was five minutes before Sansa’s shift was over when Varys asked her to deliver a room service order to one of the upper suites before she left for the night. All throughout the busy evening, they had been extremely short staffed and Sansa, meek and dutiful worker that she was, and striving to impress her new boss, readily agreed to help out. Before she left to deliver the room service, she told Pod to clock out for her since she wished to leave right after so she could catch the bus to where she stayed with her aunt who lived clear across the Isle.

The upper suite of rooms was shrouded in a peaceful silence as she made her way through the corridor, most of the guests inhabiting this floor being from the stunt crew and she herself had called the taxis they’d requested to take them out for a night on the town. She wondered if the giant man had gone with them. She hadn’t seen him earlier, the hotel had been so busy.  
She knocked on the prescribed door about to call out room service when she was interrupted by a muffled but rather crude shout to ‘get yourself in here, woman!”  
Sansa cautiously walked in, placing the liquor tray on the side table.

She was just about to slip back out the door when a huge shadow emerged from the doorway leading to the bathroom and with a swiftness that robbed her of breath, the shadow approached her in the darkened room. With some shock, she realized it was the giant man, the one who had been working with the stunt crew on the beach. She couldn’t help but notice he only had a towel draped low on his hips, his massive chest looming before her… Sansa was about to squeak out an apology and flee when he grabbed her!

He pulled her against his hard body, large hands caressing her and his mouth, so warm, nuzzled at her neck. It seemed as if all the pores on her entire body tingled all at the same time and she found that she couldn’t catch her breath! He was murmuring things that confused her even more, about how it took her long enough to come here and that she was wearing way too much clothes. Before she could protest, he was tugging at her hair until her neat bun had loosened from its tie to free her thick curls down her back.

Immediately he tangled long fingers into her thick strands, pulling her hair to one side and resumed nuzzling at her neck and down her throat. Sansa was about to push him away when he opened his hot mouth and sucked at a patch of sensitive skin at the side of her neck. Robbed of air, she slumped against him, shocked at how the motion of his mouth on her skin made her low belly tingle in a way that made her eyes close in bliss.

She could feel herself growing damp as his long fingers plucked at her breasts beneath her staid uniform blouse. Sansa was inexperienced, only sharing a few fumbling kisses and she did not truly understand that she was getting really aroused.

Before she knew what was happening, the man had tossed his towel aside and pushing her down into a chair before him, he was kneeling before her and working on her clothes to get them off. Sansa started to plead, to tell him he must be mistaken, that they couldn’t do this but to her horror, she realized her voice was stuck in her throat and her protestations were just mere thoughts.  
With a curse, he tore her blouse and slipped it from her shoulders. The rip of the material and the scattering of buttons resounded through the room.  
Shocked, she could only watch as he tugged down her bra so that her breasts were trussed up and exposed.

She could only watch as he lowered his head and suckled her nipple.

Despite herself and the situation, when he suckled her so roughly Sansa could only react, throwing back her head as pure pleasure knocked the breath out of her. She could only clutch at his shoulders as he suckled first one nipple then the other, groaning against her, gruff hands kneading the flesh he did not have in his hot mouth. A lengthy throaty moan resounded throughout the room and after a hummingbird beat of her heart, Sansa realized she’d made that sound.

The huge man abruptly let her go but then scooped her up in his arms and took her to the bed.

Again she tried to explain herself in mumbled fits and starts, tried to tell him that she was not here for this but he began deftly ridding her of her remaining clothes and much sooner than she would have expected, she lay bare as her nameday beneath him.

The man devoured her nakedness with his gaze, trailing callused fingers down her belly and she gasped when he parted her thighs, the strength of his hands imprinting against her goose-pebbled skin and then, he touched her there.

He growled, a low sound deep from his throat and she could feel his thumb sliding along the unexpected wetness in her innermost folds. Sansa felt as if she was floating somewhere but yet still anchored to the sensations he was awakening in her body.

“So wet I can smell you…smell so good. Makes a man want to lick you but that’s not what I’m paying for.”

He slid his thick long finger into her and Sansa whimpered, part numbing fear, part powerful want, his words lost on her.

“Ah, you’re so tight, woman. Fucking unbelievable!”

There was a series of quick knocks on the door. Sansa froze against him and the man growled. “Ignore it. It’s just you and me here. No one else.”

When he began sliding his finger in and out of her, Sansa slowly felt her tense body relax. She shifted her hips against him and couldn’t control the moan that left her. He grunted his encouragement, rasping 'yes' over and over in her ear.

Sansa gasped when he slipped another finger within her.

In her rising confusion, she could barely hear another series of knocks but the man didn’t so much as glance at the door. His gaze was pinned on her where he touched her so intimately.  
Sansa gasped as he began his motions anew, his fingers curling deep within her and coaxing a pleasure so intense it was almost frightening. She was mumbling incoherently now, clutching at anything she could find which happened to be his sturdy bicep. When the pleasure became too much and shattered in countless splinters throughout her body, she keened a loud cry, back arching off the bed, her nails digging deep into his unrelenting arm.

“Yes, come. Fuck, sweet woman, you’re squirting… That’s fucking beautiful. Either I’m dreaming or I’m really drunk, damn me… ”

In gradual increments, Sansa descended from her unexpected high until she felt her body settle like a soft puddle beneath the hard man hovering over her. He slid his fingers from her and for the first time, he glanced at her face. Sansa, still breathing heavily, held his stare. He tilted his head as if racking his mind for some memory but then still experiencing euphoria from the new sensations he’d coaxed from her, Sansa reached up to cradle his cheek and planted her lips against his.

Kissing him seemed such a natural thing for her to do then, to taste his lips after he’d given her a taste of what her body was capable of. It was irrational and instinctive but she thought of none of what she was doing right then. 

  
She felt his entire body stiffen against hers, his skin so hot and smooth in some places and hairy in others. He felt good against her and a new flood of excitement washed over her. The man did not respond to her kiss for a moment and her eyes fluttered open to see him looking at her in the golden light of the bedside lamp, his eyes glinting at her with what seemed like shock. Then he grasped the back of her head and slid his mouth along hers, easily taking control of the kiss.

She felt his warm tongue licking at her bottom lip. He tasted of whiskey and something else, something warm and musky and nearly sweet that made her want to kiss him all the more to discover what it was. She opened her mouth to him and when his tongue touched hers, she couldn't stop her eyes from drifting close. 

He made a deep sound, almost a growl that vibrated into her mouth and the tenor of it woke new flutters deep in her belly.

Sansa felt a sharp tug of disappointment when he abruptly ended their impromptu kiss.

His hands were warm on her skin and it was then she realized with a fresh surge of fright that he was grasping her thighs again, parting them even further. He hooked his large hand behind her knee, dragging her leg up and back over his hip.

Sansa gasped and grabbed at his arms again when she felt the largeness of him prodding at the drenched spot where her thighs met. Sudden clarity slapped her in the face as the harsh reality of her present situation rushed over her. She started to push at his arms. “Please, don’t…you can’t…we can’t…I…I’ve never…”

Her voice was caught in her throat again and instead of loud protests, she barely whispered.

Nevertheless, it was too late. With one powerful thrust of his hips, the man buried himself inside her until his hips met hers.

And Sansa Stark screamed.

The pain was lightning swift, ripping her voice free and she jerked up in shock against his sturdy torso. For a moment, the man stilled against her, his breathing ragged and heavy in the ensuing silence.  
Sansa swallowed harshly, nails embedded in his biceps, tears trailing down her cheeks where her face was buried against the man’s chest. She blindly nuzzled the tip of her nose in his abundant chest hair. Despite the lingering smell of heavy liquor, his warm, freshly washed scent was soothing in her moment of pain. She shifted her hips, trying to seek some further relief from the agony radiating from her core but then the man groaned and he moved large hands to grasp her hips so that she had no choice but to keep still within his powerful grasp. He started to move within her and the discomfort of his strong movements soon became overbearing. When he thrust even deeper, she clutched at him harder and sank her teeth into his shoulder.

The man snarled and he thrust into her even more rapidly. “Sweet fuck, woman…”

Despite the faster pace of his thrusting, the pain in her core began to subside leaving only a numb soreness. Sansa released him from her anguished bite, the metallic taste of blood coating her throat and rested her head on his chest, desperately gripping on to the man with arms and legs as he plundered her softness with his hard body. He shuddered against her and cursed again and then she felt the deep reverberations of his groan against her belly. She felt the most intimate part of him throbbing inside her, felt the heat of him within her, like a molten gush even more intense than her earlier release he’d coaxed with his fingers.  
Finally, he ceased his movements and for a moment she thought she would be crushed under his massiveness but then he slid off onto his back beside her, flinging an arm over his face with a muffled curse. “So drunk, damn me.”

He trailed off into silence and she realized he’d fallen asleep. Sansa tried not to breathe too heavily in the dark quietness lest she roused him. Fresh tears gushed free from the corners of her eyes, trailing a sticky path down to her neck. After a few moments of lying absolutely still, she cautiously began to slide from the bed. The sheets were damp and clustered together and she had to work to untangle herself…But she had only moved a few inches away from the slumbering man when he reached out with one swift arm to pull her back against his side.

“Where y’goin’ sweet ‘oman…so different…” he murmured sleepily. “…stay the whole night….pleease…”

His voiced faded out and his soft snores alerted her that sleep had gripped him once again. His murmured plea at the end before sleep took him again tugged at something in her chest but Sansa needed to leave before anyone grew wise to what really happened.

 _I could lose my job!_ She thought. But losing her virginity like this was incomparably worse.

For the second time that night, she tried to elude his grasp. But the giant man had clamped one muscled arm around her, circling her belly so that she lay with her back against his massive hairy chest. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t escape his grip.

She thought of the last time she'd been huddled in such warmth and then sadly remembered when she used to sneak to her parents room as a little girl and snuggle between them. She missed those days, the happy days before they were torn from Winterfell, before her parents were torn from each other.

On those foggy childhood nights, cocooned between Mother and Father, Sansa would usually fall asleep immediately.

Now she stayed awake for what seemed like an eternity.

Yet even as she fought to keep her eyes open, she finally fell asleep with tear-stained cheeks and solid warmth against her back that even in near slumber, she refused to admit felt like the most comfort she’d had in a long while.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The situation in this fic is not the optimum circumstances but the story must go on. Don't really think this one is going to be a light-hearted read. And while I certainly don't condone rape or any situation of that nature, I do have a sort of fetish for fics with dubious consent and this fic is my way of exploring that. 
> 
> Not that the entire story is going to be one of dubious consent though (spoiler?)
> 
> So with that said, read on if you like, don't read if you don't :)
> 
> *********************************************************************

Sansa was startled awake by a deep growl vibrating against her back. 

For a moment, she refused to open her eyes, fearing she was in the grip of some wild animal. Then the events of the night before entered her memory again. 

Oh God…

Slowly opening her eyes she could see the first fingers of light parting a dawn sky beyond the sheer curtains of the hotel window opposite the bed. Bare heated skin blanketed her back and when a large coarse hand began caressing her lower belly, she instantly became one hundred percent awake.

Sansa shivered.

“Awake, are we?” The man grumbled, his face nuzzling the thick hair at the top of her head. She fitted just under the crook of his arm. He was soo huge. 

She stifled a gasp when she felt his massive hardness nestled against the crack of her butt. When he slowly slid his fingers between her thighs, Sansa desperately clamped her legs together but the man chuckled, parting her thighs with ease before delving his hot long fingers between her folds. He touched a sensitive button of flesh between her legs, something Sansa had tried to do once in the shower but had abandoned in self-conscious embarrassment. 

The man spread her outer folds apart and with his thumb, made gentle circles on that little button of flesh. It felt nothing like when she’d touched herself. Mortified at her response to this stranger, Sansa tried to scoot away but her body seemed to have its own mind as her thighs fell open even further. 

“Yes…open up for me. You feel so good…sweet woman…”

The man’s raspy encouragement ignited that involuntary kindling of desire churning in the pit of her stomach to an all-out conflagration. His fingers slipped against her and face burning, she realized she was instinctively circling her hips against him.

She gasped when he grabbed her thigh and hoisted her leg over his hip. Long fingers threading into her unbound curls, the man rocked his hips against the cushion of her butt and in one languid move like the stroke of a searing blade through soft butter, he sheathed himself within her. She could feel his hot gaze over her shoulder pinned right where they were joined and her she squeezed her eyes shut in renewed self-consciousness. 

But all her tenseness and self-awareness evaporated when he began to thrust deep. 

There was a lingering soreness but the feel of him within her coaxed a pleasure that was stronger than any fading discomfort. She could feel every ridge of him along her inner walls and it was the strongest intimacy she’d ever experienced. 

Too overwhelming. 

Somewhere far off, she could hear her own unfettered cries mingling with his deep groans. He was massaging some unknown spot inside her with his hot, hard length and each time he rubbed there, she released a pleading cry she couldn’t stifle. 

It was too much and not enough.

She felt as if she was losing control over her entire body, she couldn’t think straight and then that sweet oblivion hit her like a hard punch again but now it felt even more intense than when he did it with his fingers alone. 

Sansa gasped and cried, and almost choked on her own spit, her body gone astray, clenching around him where he was buried so deeply inside her.  
The man increased his furious thrusting and then with a ragged growl, he gave one final slam of his hips that made her pleasure linger all the more and then he stilled against her.

This time when he fell asleep again, she was able to make her escape.

~  
Hours later, Sansa was still immersed in a state of shock. 

When she’d crept back early this morning into aunt Lysa’s drafty old apartment, she’d tiptoed to her room and then had done nothing but stare at the ceiling on her bed, flat on her back, knees propped up, thighs pressed close together, not seeing the water stained roofing but instead thinking of the giant man, his aggressive kisses, his roaming touch, the hot feel of him within her. 

Finally, she’d dragged herself from the bed and showered the man’s scent off her skin. 

Thankfully, today was her day off so she did not have to go into work at the hotel. But at the most inopportune moments, she’d remember. 

During a late breakfast with cold aunt Lysa, there was the unwelcome memory of his hot fingers within her flesh. Waiting for the bus to go to the one small library at the Isle, the memory of how comforting it had been to bury her face in his massive chest assailed her. And then walking through the book aisles, she stopped with a gasp when her low belly thrummed with the pleasure he’d coaxed from her. It was but a brief ghost of what she’d actually experienced.

The massive man was haunting her. 

And she couldn’t ever face him again even as she felt the signs of his thorough possession. Each time she walked or sat, she would wince from the soreness that lingered. But that was easier to ignore than the thought of how she had thrown all caution aside and responded to him...

The next day brought a heavy serving of guilt and a deep shame so thorough that she could not even eat a morsel of breakfast as she got ready for work. She should have been more insistent that he stop. Had he even heard her protesting whispers? She should have screamed at him to stop, not those ineffectual murmurs. Looking back at what had happened more closely outside of the feelings he’d coaxed from her, she knew it was obvious that the man had mistaken her for someone else. Hadn’t there been a knock at the door after he’d first taken her to bed? But then he’d touched her and she’d ignored it and so had he.

How was she going to face Varys her supervisor and Pod knowing what she’d done? And what if he was still at the hotel? Would he think her guilty of pretending to be the woman that he had obviously been expecting?? Oh dear God, could he report her for what happened?

It was with trepidation that Sansa entered the hotel lobby for her shift that evening. Pod, bless his kind heart, greeted her as usual. Sansa was on tenterhooks as the minutes ticked by and then the hours, with no sign of the giant man. Only a few guests were booked in and she was relieved that there was only one hour left on her shift. Maybe he didn’t remember? He had been inebriated after all. She could still smell the heavy scent of liquor on him that had not detracted from his clean masculine smell. Oh my goodness, does that qualify as me raping him?? she thought. Why oh why hadn’t I told him who I was?

She was halfway through her shift when Varys waddled into the lobby, his stern eyes fixed on her. “Miss Stark, please follow me to my office immediately.”

Pod darted a surprised glance her way. Sansa’s heart rose in her throat, its thud echoing thunderously in her head. 

In Varys’ plush office, Sansa was directed to take a seat where Varys promptly turned his surveillance computer to face her. The blood drained from her face when she saw a replay of herself slipping from the giant man’s suite at the crack of dawn, trembling fingers holding the tattered ruins of her blouse together beneath her work jacket.

“Care to explain this?” Varys enquired smoothly. 

“I-um-it was a mistake…”

“Obviously, child. What were you thinking? You know the hotel employee rules. Do you know the rip this would tear into this hotel’s stellar reputation if it was found out that one of our employees slept with a guest like a lady of the night?!” 

“Please, sir! It was all a misunderstanding!” Sansa blurted out, tears pricking at her eyes. “He mistook me for someone else and before I could correct him, he held me and then he began taking off my clothes and I…I…didn’t stop him…”

Varys tapped a contemplating finger on his plump cheek, regarding her with his shrewd gaze. “So, he raped you.”

A cold shudder overtook Sansa at Varys’ blunt statement. 

“Because if he did, we will have to pursue this, we won’t have any guest treating one of our employees in that manner. Understand, we will all resolve this privately, of course…”

“No! He didn’t rape me.”

“So you do admit that you slept with the man, a guest, of your own accord?”

 

Again and quite inappropriate at the moment, the feel of the man against her, within her, assailed her again. She was almost certain that he hadn’t heard her whispers of protest. Sansa shook her head hard to dispel the memories and raised reluctant eyes to Varys who was observing her rather closely. 

Sansa swallowed knowing that her answer determined whether she would keep her job or not.

“I let him…I mean I slept with him willingly.”

Varys placed a smooth manicured hand on her shoulder and she couldn’t help but compare how vast a contrast it was to the giant man’s callused hand.

“You know what that means my dear. As short-staffed as we are at the moment, I’m going to have to let you go. I did, after all, turn away more experienced candidates to select you for this job.”

Sansa needed this job to make up the deposit for her college fees. It’d taken her months to find a job after all and she didn’t have that much time to get another before college started. “Please, I won’t let it happen again. It was all a mistake…”

“Of course it was,” Varys said soothingly, patting her shoulder. “But I can’t risk a repeat of this situation.”

She knew Varys wouldn’t give her another chance. The manager was obsessively attached to his own job and took immense pride in the hotel’s shining reputation. He expected nothing less than perfection from all his staff and Sansa herself had been surprised he’d hired her inexperienced as she was. No, the manager would never risk his perfect tenure for her again.

Varys stepped back. “You know, there is a friend of mine who would be willing to hire you. He runs the classiest, ahem, agency and I know for a fact that he would take on a fresh young thing just like you. It pays better, too.”

At Varys’ sympathetic words, Sansa froze. Then she steeled her spine, dashing the tears from her face. Rising to her feet, she looked Varys in the eye. “Despite what you may think of me Mr. Varys, I’m not a lady for hire.”

She abruptly turned away from his surprised face and swept from the office, slamming the door shut behind her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is what I've got for now :) Thank you for reading this hot mess of a sensitive story (that I'm having way too much fun with)!

**Two days later**

 _Something isn’t adding up,_ Sandor thought as he scouted along with some of the crew for future location spots in the jungle adjoining the hotel.

They’d had to retake a few of the stunt scenes and that had taken up his entire day until he’d returned to the hotel late last night, exhausted from the long day and the events of the night before.

The night he’d gotten completely wasted.

The morning after that late night appointment, he'd woken up with a raging headache, a raging hard-on, an aching shoulder, and an empty rumpled bed. He could only remember those previous hours in sporadic, dim flashes. His lady of the night had come to his room as he’d arranged. They’d fucked the night before which was typical and then again in the morning, which was not so typical and then she’d left. From what he could recall, it had been better than his usual expectations.

But still, there was something nagging at him in the back of his mind.

The first real clue that it had not been his usual business transaction romp was when he finally staggered from the bed and noticed quite a few droplets of blood on the sheets.

“The fuck?” he’d muttered.

Then he’d spied the untouched bottles of whiskey on the side table. Had he ordered that? In the well-lit bathroom, the first thing he had noticed was the distinct small teeth marks embedded in his shoulder. The woman had drawn blood!

 _That must be it,_ he'd reasoned. That was the blood from the bed. It would leave a scar but what difference would another make. A flash of the woman orgasming on his fingers ran through his mind. She fucking squirted. That had been a magnificent sight, something he hadn’t experienced before. Maybe before he returned to Kingslanding, he could arrange to have the same lady visit him again. Yes, Sandor decided, he’d like that very much.

His phone vibrated in his pocket again, bringing him back to the here and now, and Sandor was not surprised to see the elite agency’s number where he’d chosen his lady of the night. He’d missed several calls from the agency yesterday since he’d had his phone off while they re-filmed some of the stunt work.

Sandor moved away from the rest of the crew to a fairly private corner amongst a copse of exotic palms. He had been planning on calling the agency himself to request the same lady, might as well do it now. But the agency proprietor surprised him.

“We were disappointed, Mr. Clegane, to find that you did not use the services you rendered.”

Sandor scowled at the satiny smooth sound of the man. “What in the seven hells do you mean by that?”  
He could still feel the ache of her bite on his shoulder for fuck’s sake.

The agency proprietor delicately cleared his throat. “Why, the beautiful lady you expressly asked for two nights ago arrived at your hotel suite only to find herself locked out and then…”  
Sandor growled impatiently when the proprietor paused for more than a beat.

“She was quite frankly told by one of the hotel guards, Bronn I believe his name was, that and I quote ‘shit happens’ and that sometimes guests decide that,” Again the man cleared his throat, grating on Sandor’s quickly fizzling nerves. “I again quote, ‘free pussy is sweeter than paid …”

“What the fuck are you saying? The woman was in my room. I was…quite pleased with her. What are you on about?”

“I’m receiving quite a different report from the lady in question, Mr. Clegane. She said you never answered her knock. And then, on the advice of the charming Bronn, she simply left. You can hardly expect a lady of such caliber to wait around for you the rest of the night. I fear to say the lady you spent an entire night with is not the one you hired, Mr. Clegane. Of course, you know there’ll be no refund for your blunder.”

Memories of the night before came to him again. A flash of red curls, long slim limbs, a glimpse of wide blue eyes…Blue eyes. The lady Sandor had requested had ebony hair that fell pin-straight, right down to the curve of her ass, eyes black as night and was on the shorter, curvier side.

Sandor slowly disconnected the call.

He returned to the hotel ASAP. He had to find out just who it was had come into his room. He couldn’t think straight. He’d fucked some unknown woman, and he hadn’t planned it. Sandor was particularly stringent about having control over every aspect of his life and needs. He suspected that planning every little detail of what he did, where he did it and with whom he did it was bordering on the obsessive-compulsive and he certainly as fuck didn’t like that he’d slipped up so badly. He really needed to limit his alcohol intake. Dammit, how could he let himself be so careless? Immediately, he made for the hotel lobby. There was the amiable young man who Sandor noticed worked the late shifts during his almost week-long stay at the hotel. There was usually a timid, shy looking girl who was there with him, her hair in a no-nonsense tight bun. She was nowhere to be seen.

He placed a meaty fist on the front desk counter. “I need to talk to your manager.”

“Of course sir. Right away, sir.” The boy made a quick call.

Sandor stifled an irritated growl. He remembered snapping at the tall little girl who was usually here for calling him ‘sir’ that first evening he’d arrived at the hotel. Drumming his fingers on the desk, Sandor waited.

Mercifully it wasn't too long before a plump man approached, staring at him with growing caution. “Ah, Mr. Clegane. I trust you have been enjoying your stay so far. Pod here told me you wished to speak with me? I'm Varys the manager. ”

There was something like a knowing glint in the man’s eyes. He appeared as if he didn’t miss an ant crawling in a corner of this quaint little doll-house. Sandor decided he must know something of the woman who had come to his room the night before.

Sandor took a quick glance around. “I need to discuss something privately.”

The manager’s lacquered lips spread in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Of course. We can talk in my office.”

~

Sandor felt like an overgrown bear in the manager’s, Varys he’d said his name was, overly feminine office. He didn’t waste any time. “There was a situation two nights past. Someone came into my room and I, fuck, I mistook her for someone else.”

He felt like the biggest fool right about now. How did a grown man like himself explain that he’d gotten so drunk that he’d mistakenly fucked the wrong woman?

“I fear I do know of what you speak.” Varys cooed, a nauseatingly pitying look shrouding his pale powdered face. “Unfortunately, there was a misunderstanding with one of my employees.”

Sandor rifled an agitated hand through his hair, ignoring Varys’ wincing cringe when his scars were fully revealed. “An employee…” he breathed out.

Another flash of that misbegotten night took him again. He remembered ripping something, buttons scattering on the pristine bedroom carpet, he’d torn off the woman’s jacket…

“I know how supremely embarrassing this must be, Mr. Clegane. Rest assured all discretion shall be kept about this incident. It goes without saying that you won’t be sharing your little adventure, would you?”

Sandor had the overwhelming urge to punch Varys’ smug, condescending look from his face. He could barely admit to himself what he’d done much more to share it with others. Not that he talked with other people that closely. Wouldn’t his cursed brother like to hear this one!

“What about this woman? Surely she should have said something to me!”

“I fully agree, my dea-”  
At Sandor’s scowl, Varys thought better of completing his endearment and instead tactfully finished with, “…Mr. Clegane.”

“Why didn’t she say anything?” Sandor murmured to himself.

Varys heard him and said, “I already spoke to the employee in question. Rest assured she fully understands the error of her ways and was dealt with accordingly. You must realize that there are a lot of, how shall I put it, grasping girls out here, willing to do anything to make extra money. Why, I think you should surely check your belongings to make sure she didn’t steal off with anything. Poor dear saw an opportunity and thought she could get away with it. I do try my best to filter out these characters in the hiring process, understand, this hotel is known for its immaculate, dedicated staff, we would never condone such behaviour here…"

The blasted manager droned on and Sandor buried his face in his hand, more flashes from that night assailing his head. He could still smell her arousal, could still feel her slick flesh, could still see in the light of the bedside lamp, how her body had reacted, how her juices had spilled onto his hand…

_Fuck._

“…such a sweet innocent face, I would have never believed she could be so ruthless as to advantage one of our guests in such a manner. Oh, my heart is just too kind, I gave the silly girl a chance and this is what she does…”

Wide blue eyes in a sweet innocent face. Sharp as a sun ray in his eye, Sandor remembered the way she’d looked at him before she’d kissed him. She kissed me! The ladies he occasionally slept with never kissed him.

“Who was it?” Sandor asked flatly.

Varys stopped his insufferable cooing abruptly, glancing at him in surprise. “Why, that’s hardly important anymore…”

“It is to me. I fucking had sex with someone with who I hadn’t planned to. I’d say it’s pretty fucking important.”

He could see Varys was reluctant to reveal the employee’s name. “Rest assured Mr. Clegane, I fired her. And I trust you did take precautions…”

“That’s none of your bluidy business!” Sandor stood to his full height, looming over the quivering plump man. “Who is she?”

Varys began speaking rather fast. “She’s just a girl, sir. Guaranteed I understand your concerns. An innocent face could hide dirty deeds committed, of course. She was one of our new front desk clerks. A girl named Sansa Stark.”

Sandor groaned, slapping a heavy palm over his face. “Not that little girl at the front desk. Tell me not her.”

Varys nodded gravely.

Not a woman. A girl. She was little more than a child! Sandor always made sure his ladies were fully grown women, select ladies of the night who were paid well to do what they did best, who could take his habitual gruffness.

And the things this Varys was saying about this girl… he regarded the hotel manager with renewed distaste. Sandor considered himself to be a crass, crude man who enjoyed uncomplicated liaisons more than he should yet he did not judge his ladies of the night as some hypocritical men might, men who would cast stones at the pretty houses whose warmth they enjoyed. Quite to the contrary, Sandor had an abiding respect for those ladies. They were experienced hardened survivors in their own way, just like him. And despite what Varys insinuated about this girl's nature, he wouldn’t believe it until he had concrete proof himself that she had deliberately arranged this. Sandor snorted. As if anyone would sleep with him for free or freely because they wanted to... Yes, this girl would remain innocent in his mind.

With a sudden clarity that almost made him retch, Sandor recalled the droplets of blood he’d spied on the bedsheets the morning after. Could she be a...damn, he couldn’t even stomach the thought. The memory of those droplets opened another doorway of more memories and not the pleasurable ones he murkily remembered.

She’d fucking _screamed._

He’d fucked her and she’d bluidy screamed and he hadn’t stopped. Despite the memories of the girl’s response to him, Sandor was now left to contemplate if she had been willing in the first place. _God, did I rape her? Please no, not fucking that! I’m not like him._

But he’d felt her clutching at him, had thought that her moans were ones of passion. Could it be that she had been in pain? Sandor hadn’t been gentle with her. Of course, he hadn’t been, he’d thought she was an experienced lady of the night, his usual sort of creature. Not a bluidy innocent-faced, delicate girl.

For a moment Sandor was no longer in this office that smelled of roses and perfume but in that room in the vast gloomy manor in which he’d been born and to which he never intended to return.  
There had been another set of bloody sheets, another bed where a girl’s innocence had been stolen.  
He’d run after her after she’d fled, injured and weak and still he couldn’t save her from the pain of what their monstrous brother had done to her. He could remember the sharp wailing wind of the Westerland cliffs that bordered Clegane’s manor. Wailing a song of death. He could see again as vividly as if she was right in front of him, wild dark Clegane hair flying in the wind as she stood at the edge between solid ground and oblivion.

Sandor shook the memories free and refocused on the manager. “I have to find her. Tell me where I can find her.”

Varys was puttering about his desk. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“You don’t know the address of one of your employees?”

“Former employee.”

Sandor took a step closer to Varys’ flowery desk. “You must have some sort of contact for her!”

The manager’s amiable face turned cold. “Please Mr. Clegane, I wish with all my heart for you to retain and enjoy the rest of your stay here. Unfortunately calling security would put a bit of a crimp in that.”

Sandor knew that nothing short of throttling the manager before him would force the information he needed. He curled his fists, snarling at the manager whose jiggly hand hovered just above the emergency security button. But he didn’t fancy spending the rest of his time on the Summer Isle in one of their sweltering jail cells.

Cursing soundly, Sandor veered out of the office. Now that most of his work with the stunt crew was complete, Sandor was free to check out of the hotel and that’s the first thing he did. He tried questioning the polite clerk, Pod his name tag said, about the girl’s whereabouts. But either Pod was truly clueless or his manager Varys had already called and warned him to shut it or lose his job.  
Sandor began to pace outside the lobby, his light luggage perched on the sidewalk, trying to decide where to call the taxi to go to. The Summer Isle wasn’t a big place but if you had no known direction for a person you were looking for, it’d be near impossible to find them.

Sandor remembered how he’d first dismissed the timid little front desk clerk at his first night in that overly fancy hotel. He’d categorized her as just an overgrown girl child. He’d never had an inexperienced girl before. He went for uncomplicated ladies of the night, mature women who knew what he wanted and supplied just that and only that. Sandor had no shame in admitting that he was an extremely virile man and had no qualms about paying for what he wanted. It was just one of those needs he meticulously planned for, making sure to meet the girl before and damned well making sure she was clean as a whistle and that she fully understood his arrangement.

He didn’t pursue inexperienced girls. That was not up his alley. He’d leave that to the beast he shared blood with.  
Except, damned mistake or not, I’m just like him now…

“You about to miss a flight, mate?”

Sandor turned to see a security guard lounging by a large tree a few feet away from the hotel’s reception doors. The large palm hid the man from the hotel’s view but Sandor could see him clearly from where he stood. The security guard was obviously on a break as he lit the cigar he cupped in his hands.

“I’m looking for someone.” Sandor blurted which was quite uncharacteristic of him. He didn’t usually go sharing his troubles with strangers. But then, he had never found himself in quite such a situation either.

The guard strolled unhurriedly towards him. He was shorter than he was as most men were, and he wore what Sandor supposed was the hotel’s uniform shirt. His name tag said Bronn.  
“Couldn’t be you were searching for that pretty chick that was fired for boning you after her shift, would you now?”

“How the fuck would you know anything about that?”

“Security, dude. And surveillance cameras in the hotel corridors. No matter how ol’ Varys tries, he can’t keep the juicy gossip from gettin’ around.”

“What’s it to you?” Sandor growled, his impatience and frustration soaring higher with every second.

“Ah, I shouldn’t tell you where the chick is but ol’ Varys annoys the hell outta me. Talkin’ about the girl as if she was the one who stuffed that stick up his arse. Guaranteed the chick coulda been more discreet but anyways, I can help you find her. Man, I like me some tall girls. Makes you just wanna pull them down and-”

Sandor all but growled. “You know where she lives?”

“Oh yeah, she’s stayin’ with her aunt across town. I know the aunt. Prim and proper in the streets, not a lady in the sheets, that one. Ah, those redheads. Gotta love’em. Mother was a stunner herself. Pity what happened with her ol’ man.”

“Will you take me to her?”

“You wanna bone her again?”

“I need to …fuck, I need to talk to her.” This girl was someone's daughter, someone's sister perhaps. If he'd...gods forbid, if he'd taken her forcefully, what if his drunken actions made the girl harm herself in the way that _she_ had? Even after all this time, Sandor couldn't think of his sister's name without feeling that crushing weight of failure.

“Sure, I’ll take you to her aunt," Bronn said on a puff of smoke. "She mightn’t be too happy to see my face again but maybe your tall red headed chick would be happy to see you, eh? I’ll take you there after my shift’s up.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this chapter is sort of a bridge...no more smut just yet :(  
> I did try to establish the current circumstances of Sansa's family life outside of 'the big night' incident that happened. And then a plot started taking shape...I sweearrr I start off with short stories and then they grow a mind of their own!! But this is rough-draft style, just me exploring my crazy ideas! Thanks so much for reading :)

The whip of the wind made the goosebumps prickle on her skin but it was nothing compared to the chill within her. Sansa stared out into the dark horizon as she gripped the ship’s railing with tight fingers.

Beside her sat her pitifully small carry-on bag. When she’d come back to Aunt Lysa’s apartment after leaving the Isle hotel for the last time, she’d been in for another unpleasant surprise. Aunt Lysa had regarded her shrewdly, the small smile on her thin mouth not reaching her narrowed eyes.

“Sansa, sweetheart, I’m afraid I have some rather bad news. I’m giving up this apartment.”

Before Sansa could respond, Aunt Lysa had turned with a full beam now to the man standing in the room behind her. Sansa hadn’t realized he’d been there in the dim shadows until he stepped closer.

“I’m moving in with Petyr!” Aunt Lysa announced gleefully.

He moved to stand beside Aunt Lysa, wrapping an arm about her shoulders but his steady gaze alighted on Sansa.

She was somewhat familiar with Mr. Baelish, Aunt Lysa’s friend, the few times he'd come by the apartment when he took her aunt out for dinner. He was always immaculately dressed in a freshly pressed three-piece business suit and he seemed like a kind man to her, always having a polite smile the few times she’d seen him. He’d told her himself that first time she’d met him that he was a long-standing friend of the Tullys, that he had been a childhood friend of ‘Cat’, the nickname he called Sansa’s mother.

“But…I have nowhere to stay.” Sansa had whispered as Aunt Lysa looked on indifferently at her.

“Why you can return to your brothers and mother, I’m sure they’d be glad to have you back.”

Sansa missed her brothers dearly, and her mother, even if Catelyn Stark was no longer the headstrong, vibrant woman she used to be before Father’s incarceration. But her stay at the Isle had ended in disaster. How was it the very thing she’d been trying to avoid in her countless interviews with shady prospective employers hit her in the face when she’d finally found a respectable job? Now she was all out of luck, out of a job, practically penniless and utterly homeless.

After Aunt Lysa’s urging, there was nothing left for her to do but to pack her meager belongings. While Aunt Lysa got herself ready for her date, Sansa had been surprised to see Mr. Baelish standing there in the doorway of the tiny guestroom that had been Sansa’s sleeping space since she’d been staying with her aunt for the past few weeks.

“Lysa told me about you losing your job. I’m so sorry to hear that, Sansa. You know, there’s a vacancy in my uptown office. My secretary is taking a leave of absence and I’m looking for someone to fill her spot for a couple months. It’s just simple stuff, filing some papers, answering the phone and doing some basic computer work. Think you can do that?”

Sansa couldn’t believe it as she nodded, her throat tight. She so desperately needed a job. But then there was the lack of a place for her to stay.

“But even if I accepted the job, I have nowhere to stay, Mr. Baelish.”

He’d smiled down at her where she knelt before her lone luggage. “I considered that. There are a few girls at the office who rent an apartment together. They might have an extra room. It’d be less rent for you to pay since you’ll have two other roommates. I’m sure they’ll be willing to take you on. You can cover your share of the rent at the end of your first month at the office.”

It seemed like the perfect solution. She’d be able to not go home empty-handed and in disgrace at least. And maybe scramble her initial college fees.

“Think about it, Sansa and let me know.” Mr. Baelish had said.

He’d held his hand out to her and Sansa rose to take the embossed card he gave her.

He'd just begun to regale her with an outdoor adventure in the Riverlands that he and ‘Cat’ had embarked on when Aunt Lysa had swept in, interrupting his monologue and practically dragging him out the door.

It wasn’t long after they’d left when she got the call.

Mother was frantic and mostly incoherent over the line until Robb came on and told her what Mother had been trying to say. Father had been severely beaten at the prison. Sansa was horrified. She decided then and there that her mother needed her if only for a few days.

She scribbled a quick note to Aunt Lysa telling her she would return to the Isle in a week. Then Sansa hurriedly finished packing her nearly threadbare luggage and hurriedly took a bus to the downtown wharf where daily ferry shuttles ran between the old city of Winterfell and the more modern port boulevards of the Summer Isle.

The bus was cheaper than calling a taxi, at least but the fare would consume a chunk of her savings. All that didn’t matter now though. Sansa needed to be with her family.

Fortunately, there was not a long wait for a ferry, sometimes one even had to wait overnight.

Sansa quickly boarded the ferry that had been named the Sea Bird, giving the ship attendant her ticket. She’d arrived at the Isle on the Wolf Wanderer and she’d thought then how apt, to be travelling on a ship that reminded her of her family’s ancient sigil but now it felt as if she was fleeing back to Winterfell, defeated and broken, failing at what she’d come here to do. To secure her future. At this moment, it seemed as lost to her as her virginity now was, as the old respectability of her family name now was.

There were barely any passengers on the ship and Sansa perched herself in a lone corner. She moved to look out from the railing as the Sea Bird departed the warm port of the Summer Isle for the chilly shores of Winterfell. And it was just then as the Sea Bird glided over the calm waters of the bay that she glanced at the port as it grew smaller. She thought she spied a figure there on the empty port, even as the Sea Bird sailed further away the figure appeared to be someone unusually tall. But a gusty breeze blew against her cheek causing her to briefly close her eyes and when she looked again she didn’t see anyone in the foggy night air.

With a despondent sigh, she dragged her faded luggage to the corner of a stairway so that she was hidden from the sight of the few passengers on board. She couldn’t afford a cabin so she sat folded in on herself on the bottom step. The last thing that Sansa thought of before she fell into a cramped, exhausted sleep, was how she’d tasted the blood from his flesh when she bit his shoulder as he took her. And she didn’t even know his name.

 

~

 

Robb her oldest brother and Rickon, the youngest, waited for her at the Port of Winterfell. Rushing into their arms, Sansa felt for a moment as if everything was right in the world.  

Six-year-old Rickon with his mischievous smile tugged at the end of her haphazard braid, she was such a mess from her usual neat self, and for once Sansa didn’t scold him.

Robb however, did notice that she wasn’t herself right away much as she’d have preferred him not to.

“Sansa, what’s wrong?”

She avoided looking into Robb’s clear blue eyes, so like hers. He was rather different looking than her with his dark auburn hair where hers was a lighter red but they had mirror eyes. Robb had always been the one to tell when she was upset where everyone else was sidetracked by her assuring smiles.

Sansa tried to smile for her brothers’ sake even if she couldn’t fool Robb. “I’m just tired from the trip. What news is there of Father?”

Robb looked at her for another beat and she stifled a sigh of relief when he seemed to drop his queries. “He was barely coherent when the guard found him in the corner of the cell. Mother and I have been to see him but…they wouldn’t let us.”

She saw Robb’s hand curl into fists as they walked along the blustery early morning wharf to the beaten up old Chevy her elder brother shared with their cousin Jon.

“Mother must be so worried.” Sansa kept her voice low as Rickon skipped along beside them, holding her hand in his and swinging it like he always did when they would stroll Winterfell’s frosty woodlands.

Before they were forced to leave.

“She’s not left her room since we got back from the prison, Sansa.” Robb whispered beside her. “She’s gotten even further away from herself, from the way she used to be. It’s as if she’s some zombie, some shell of the mother we all knew.”

Sansa swallowed the lump in her throat. “And Bran? Is Old Nan still there with him?”

She’d felt so guilty when she first went away to the Summer Isle to work. But Robb had been the one to insist that she go. He didn’t want her future ruined because their family’s name had been. Unlike the Tully men on Mother’s side of the family who believed a woman’s prime responsibility was to her household, Robb shared Father’s view that the girls in their family should have the same opportunities as the boys.

Mother hadn’t wanted her to go but Sansa knew in her heart that just like Robb, Father would not want her to set her college dreams aside.

“Old Nan’s as strong as ever,” Robb grinned crookedly before sobering again. “I guess you’ll see how it is for yourself soon enough.”

Robb then told her that he’d tried again to see Father today together with Jon but they again were not allowed to visit him.

Sansa hadn’t seen Father since the fraud squad had dragged him away.

The memory brought back another loss to her. One of the men on the fraud squad had tried to approach Sansa that evening and Lady, her beloved wolfhound had lunged at him. Sansa could still hear the echo of the gunshot that had slain her Lady. _The bullet only missed me by inches._

Lady had died in her arms and when they left the home where Sansa and her brothers had been born and raised, she felt as if she’d left a piece of herself in the corner of the castle grounds where Lady had been laid to rest.

Sansa knew she’d always remember the sound of Lady’s shrill whimper when the bullet hit her straight in the heart but at least before the shine in her eyes was dimmed for the final time, she’d seemed at peace as Sansa cradled her.

Robb had helped bury her before they’d had to leave.

Sansa glanced out unseeing at the decrepit houses they passed by as Robb drove them to the small townhouse they had to move into at the edge of Winter Town. Bran was in his chair at the front wooden porch to greet her. Her second youngest brother wore his usual solemnity like his favourite sweater. Old Nan was there as well and she gathered Sansa into one of her feather light but sturdy hugs. Old Nan had always been there from ever since Sansa could remember. The old woman had helped with the births of all Mother’s children and she’d loyally followed them from the old splendor of their Winterfell home to the dreary dregs of Winter Town.

Then there was Mother.

Sansa felt her eyes sting sharply when she entered the darkened tiny room where Mother spent most of her days. Robb was right, she was just a mere shell of who she used to be, her cheeks sunken and sallow, her hair brittle and thinner than she remembered. Old Nan, rumoured to have passed her hundredth nameday as the old Northerners called someone’s birthday, seemed more vibrant than Catelyn Stark, a woman who was in her prime.

Mother grasped at her hand with dry thin fingers when Sansa came to sit beside her. “They set him up, my Ned. They took him away from me! I’ll kill them! I’ll kill them all!”

Sansa brushed the wispy strands of her mother’s greying hair from her creased forehead, making soothing comforting noises. She should never have left her to go to the Summer Isle. Mother needed her. But Father and Robb had insisted on her still trying for college. And heaven help her, it was something she’d wanted to…a chance to escape Winterfell, to escape the stares and the whispers. _Lot of good it did me, going away._

Before long Old Nan came in to assist her mother with her daily bath and Sansa helped where she could, lovingly and gently brushing Mother’s thin silvery red hair. She helped Old Nan make dinner, the old woman scolding her good-naturedly at her clumsiness in the small kitchen. Cooking was one area she did not perform well in and her brothers had always teased her about that, particularly the time she'd tried to make breakfast and instead made burnt pancakes.  _Mother always organized the most elaborate dinner parties,_ Sansa thought sadly.

After dinner, she sat in the cramped living area with Bran and Rickon watching some old TV show that she didn’t really care to see but she was surrounded by pack, by her family and looking at her brothers made her miss Father even more.

Robb was pacing on the porch right outside the door, talking with his best friend Theon most likely, when she heard his voice rise with a sudden sharpness. “They let in the Mountain, they let him in there to torture Father until he gives them what they want! But I know Father. He won’t give in to them. I don’t care what clout they have, I’m not going to sit by and let them get away with this…”

Sansa frowned, her arm tightening around Rickon who was beginning to fall asleep snuggled next to her. She couldn't bear to think of Robb endangering himself by going after the people responsible for Father's imprisonment. 

A shudder of worry for Father and Robb made its way through her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next one they meet again for sure!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not quite a smooth road yet

Sandor moved with the swift agility of a predator on the hunt along the pier but by the time he arrived at the port, the Sea Bird was already in flight, sailing away from the wharf towards Winterfell.

Muttering a curse he watched as the small ship disappeared in the foggy horizon.

When he and the hotel guard Bronn had arrived at the aunt’s apartment, Lysa she said her name was, she’d told them that Sansa had returned to her hometown in Winterfell. The woman hadn’t seemed to care one way or another about why two strange men had come looking for her niece, even if she did seem to know Bronn. From what Sandor recalled of the girl, she seemed to hardly be the sort to be stuck with an uncaring relative in a place like the Summer Isles where the more base pleasures in life were openly catered to.

Inhaling a sharp breath of the salty ocean air and sorely needing a drink of his favourite sour red, Sandor decided to get a flight. It was the quickest way to get to Winterfell rather than wait for the other ferry. Normally he would have preferred the open air of the sea shuttle but he wanted to see her, apologize to her before he left to return to his studio in Movie Landing.

He had to make sure their encounter had not resulted in any lasting consequences.

That was what Sandor feared most of all.

He knew exactly what he was. Not the overgrown stuntman paid to do unbelievable feats in Movie Landing’s make-believe world. No his roots ran deeper, to the murky underground world of death and protecting men who could destroy far more with one word than Sandor ever could with his fists.

Not that he’d needed to use his fists too often when he was a member of the Lannister Guard. The powerful Westerosi family spared no expense to equip their guards with the mist lethal weapons.

And their latest weapon wasn’t mere steel but their most evil yet, a monster of a man who happened to be his brother.

The day Gregor had returned to the Lannister’s stronghold of guards was the day Sandor had retired from their service.

He’d run away again he supposed, the same way he’d run away after their sister died. He’d been fresh out of school then at sixteen, joining with a street gang before falling in with the Lannisters. He knew Gregor would have come after him if not for the fact that he’d been jailed for battering another boy to death.

The street gang he used to roam the Westerlands with was really a travelling group of stuntsmen who taught him the skills he would turn to after he left the Lannisters. But back then he was practically living on the streets with no money, refusing to return to the empty Clegane manor that held so many ghosts.

One night he witnessed a burglary taking place in one of the alleys that mazed through the dock that housed sea shuttles to Casterly Rock. Something about the thief towering over the dwarf had reminded Sandor of the many times Gregor had threatened him and worse. Instead of going on his way as he might have, Sandor had single-handedly disarmed the robber where he was about to press his blade on the dwarf’s throat. He’d learned after that the dwarf was Tyrion Lannister, second son to one of the most influential men in Westeros.

Tyrion told him he would do well as a hired guard and wanting to put even more distance between himself and his childhood home, Sandor had taken Tyrion’s suggestion and sought out a position in the Lannister Guard. It was only after he’d been fully indoctrinated into the Guard that he’d learnt he’d been hired so easily because of the name he bore, because of _his_ reputation.

He was a Clegane, brother to the most ferocious of the Lannister guards.

Gregor had been the Lannisters’ creature even before Sandor had, and the Lannister patriarch Tywin eventually got him out on early parole then welcomed him back into the Guard with open arms. That was when Sandor left.

But though he’d abandoned those days of committing the Lannisters’ dirty deeds, he was still not a man who walked a man’s natural path. He was a beast, the Lannisters knew it, knew it was in his blood, the love for killing. And beasts weren’t meant to fit in a father’s shoes…

It was not until the next morning that he’d managed to get a flight and arrange for a car to find the address her aunt had given him. Bringing the car he’d rented from town to a stop, he was surprised to see that the place was a rundown shambles situated on the outskirts of an even shittier small town, far away from the old noble mansions. Sandor checked the address twice on his phone. According to the map, he was in the right place.

He could remember the girl where she’d sat prim at the front desk when he’d first arrived at the hotel in the Summer Isles. She’d seemed to him like an untouchable princess who belonged in one of those ancient Winterfell castles.

Taking a deep breath, he unfolded himself from the car, dammit he missed his big black truck.

The sound of a door shutting close made him look beyond the crumbling wall of the old house.

Precisely five days after their encounter, Sandor laid eyes on Sansa Stark again just as she was exiting the rattling front door.

_She’s taller than I remembered_ , he thought absently.

Her face was achingly young, her skin gleaming with the dewiness of youth. Her hair was like the red autumn leaves that carpeted the lower hills in the Westerlands. He’d forgotten about the magnificent Falls there. Perhaps the memory had been buried under harsher ones.

He watched as the girl stepped daintily down the narrow short stairs. She raised her head, saw him, blanched and turned again to rush back inside.

But Sandor was swifter.

He caught up to her just before she could disappear back into that ramshackle house.

“Trying to fly away like a little bird, are we now?”

“Let me go.”

“Words spoken a little too late, girl.”

She winced and Sandor silently cursed his rash tongue.

“Why are you here?”

She was glaring up at him, eyes blazing and Sandor released her, taking a step back.

The old wood on the dingy porch creaked in protest under his heavy feet. He looked around the rundown place and she followed his gaze. Her face went red and she lowered her eyes as if ashamed.

He stared at her lowered lashes, red as her hair, and he saw a shiver rake her slim frame. Did he scare her so much now that she could fully see him in the unforgiving light of day? He shook his head at himself. Did he really have to ask himself that? All he had to do was look into a bluidy mirror and he’d get his answer.

“How old are you girl?”

She still had her eyes glued to the stained wooden planks at their feet and he had to strain to hear her mumble. “Seventeen.”

_She’s legal at least,_ Sandor thought with a measure of relief. He wiped a weary hand over his eyes.

“Look, I know this is an unfortunate situation. Had I known you were not a whore I wouldn’t have touched you.”

He watched as her cheeks turned pink at his blunt words and he reminded himself that she was no more than a young girl. No matter what Varys or Bronn implied with their jaded opinions, Sandor could not refute his gut instinct. Sansa Stark had not planned any of this.

“Was it…fuck, was it your first time?” he whispered.

She visibly shuddered but wouldn’t look at him anymore. He remembered then the way she’d stared straight into his eyes that night, right before she reached to touch his scarred cheek and kissed him. _And now she won’t even look at me._

He was accustomed to most everyone avoiding his face; people’s response to his scars had long since ceased to bother him. But to see her do such, after she’d _kissed_ him, annoyed him suddenly.

She who knew that she wasn’t supposed to be in his room, in his bed.

He leaned towards her. “Look at me!”

She sucked in a sharp breath. Timidly, she raised her gaze to his. He watched as her gaze darted to his scars but she didn’t look away.

“It’s too damned late to have any regrets now. I heard you lost your job, though. Shouldn’t have happened. I can give you some money…”

“I don’t need your money!”

Her prim tone, so high and mighty, bothered him more than it should have.

Sandor glanced around with deliberation, taking in the damaged pillars of the old porch and the boarded up windows with their cracked panes. “I think you do.”

The girl’s pale cheeks flooded with another blush and it sort of tickled him when he realized she was getting pissed.

“I didn’t ask you to find me. I’m not one of your ladies for hire, _sir._ ”

Sandor’s breath hitched and to his chagrin, he felt his pants grow tight. “I told you not to call me that.”

She swallowed as he moved closer, backing away until she was pressed against the shaky door. Her eyes, wide and bright, were the eyes of a doe caught in headlights. He did not want her scared of him but knew he was asking for too much.

“Do you know who calls me that? Those very same ladies for hire that you scorn. You think you’re better than they are, little girl? Because from what I do remember, you were all too willing.”

She squeezed her sickeningly pretty blue eyes shut for an instant and Sandor shouted internally at himself. _What are you saying, you big ass. I came here to make sure she was okay and to tell her sorry!_

But Sandor didn’t do apologies well, if at all.

She looked as if she were about to cry now. What did he know about dealing with a girl’s tears? _Nothing_ , he thought bitterly. _Nothing at all._

His sister’s tear-stained face was the last sight he had of her. Her last words to him still made his fists clench. But he couldn’t think of that now.

He watched as this girl’s, Sansa’s, lower lip trembled.

“I tried to tell you I was not who you thought I was. But you wouldn’t stop…you wouldn’t stop…”

Before he could think better of it, he snapped at her. “I didn’t hear you say no, girl. Not when I took off your clothes. Not when you kissed me. Not when you came all over my bluidy hand. And certainly not when you squealed louder than any lady of the night wrapped around my bluidy cock.”

The crack of a hand slapping flesh echoed throughout the small porch and then there was a sharp sting on his one good cheek.

His head turned with the surprising force of her blow.

He couldn't believe the nerve of her! This infuriating little doll had smacked the taste out of his mouth.

Sandor growled a warning, glaring down at her. “ _Girl_.”

He didn’t tolerate anyone hitting him. Not man, woman or child.

“ _Woman_. Not girl. Isn’t that what you called me that night? Or do you not remember?”

Sandor sneered. “You’re nothing but a girl to me. A girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The tears, those damned tears, did tumble from her eyes then and Sandor felt as if someone had punched him in the windpipe. He found he couldn’t breathe as he continued to watch her.

Then he remembered his true concern, the reason why he’d come to this god-forsaken town to find her.

“You _will_ come to the doctor with me tomorrow. I’ll make the appointment. Have to make sure you…”

He couldn’t contemplate the very idea that she might be pregnant. But better to learn sooner than later...

“Leave. Now.” She breathed those two words as if it took everything in her not to sob.

“I will return tomorrow and you will go to the doctor with me, whether you like it or no.”

“And what if I don’t want to?” she asked in a voice as chilly as the famed winds of Winterfell.

Sandor flinched but kept his eyes on the girl. “Listen to me and listen well. I won’t drop this until I bluidy well make sure you’re not stuck with something you’re not ready for.”

_That I will never be ready for._

She glared up at him, fire in her eyes and something about her look made the blood pump faster through his veins.

He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I was expecting a grown-ass woman who knows how to handle herself and take precautions. Not a curious little girl who bit off more than she could chew.”

She glanced at the direct spot on his shoulder, now covered by his shirt, where she’d bitten him that night.

“Care to examine the scar you left behind?”

She lowered her eyes, retreating into her timid, untouchable shell again. But not before he saw a glimmer of something in her expressive eyes.

He wanted to find out what that something was, if it was anger or interest but she wouldn’t look at up at him again. Most likely it was the former not the latter. Any hint of interest he’d imagined was most assuredly his own wishful thinking, he told himself.

He tilted his head, regarding the girl before him.

She’d seemed like one of those sweet girls who didn’t anger easily, the ones who always had a ready smile or polite word. The type of girl _she_ had been. The type of girl he steered clear of. But now here he was, looming so close above her. And she wasn’t as sweet as he’d first believed not when he could still feel his cheek sting from her hand.

_I may have deserved that,_ he admitted grudgingly.

Standing before her as he was, he found himself inhaling the scent of her hair. A sudden flash from that night whipped through his mind right then, quick and heady, the scent of lemon and cinnamon in his nose, the silken feel of her fiery strands in his grip.

Sandor made himself take a step back.

He gave her one last look before he turned to leave, a deliberately disparaging look, raking his eyes from the top of her absurdly red hair to the tips of her toes in their sandals.

_Cute little toes…_ Sandor shook his head gruffly at the unwelcome thought. “I’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll go then.”

He turned abruptly, loping over the rickety short stairs that might not hold his weight. Behind him he heard the push of the door then the sound of her running footsteps.

Starting the too small rental car, he glanced one last time at the little house that held the tall girl who had somehow ended up in his bed and for few insane seconds, as he remembered the fire in her eyes as she glared at him and the feel of her soft mouth moving on his scarred lips that night, he was sorely tempted to run after her.

He needed that sour red now. But that was what had gotten him in this trouble in the first place. At that thought, Sandor didn’t think he could stomach another drop anytime soon.

It was only after he’d driven back to the city, he remembered he hadn’t told her his name. Not that she’d asked.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is not the short ficlet I planned it to be...  
> Thank you so much for reading :)

  
Just as he’d threatened, he showed up early next morning before she could leave the house.

She could practically taste the beat of her heart in her dry mouth when the door rattled with his pounding knock.

Her brothers had already left for work and school, Robb working with the new security firm in town and he’d had an early shift, leaving just after sunrise while Bran and Rickon had left for school a few minutes before. It was just her, Mother and Old Nan who was still asleep at the house. Mother usually slept until the early afternoon as she spent hours awake at night. Sansa missed the jubilant, capable, organized mother she’d had before father’s imprisonment.

  
For a moment she was grateful that she’d locked the door as Robb had bid her.

  
Robb.

  
She thanked her lucky stars that he hadn’t seen that man when he’d showed up at the house yesterday. The thought of her older brother knowing what happened during her stay working in the Summer Isles was something that made Sansa ill. She just wanted to put all this behind her, and reserve whatever worry she had for Mother and Father and maybe accept the job Mr. Baelish had so generously offered her and start college at UW…

  
The door rattled in its frame again. She spied his immense shadow shifting restlessly beyond the fogged up glass of the door panels and in the small back yard of the old house, Dane, Robb’s huge wolfhound, was barking up a storm in his kennel where Robb usually left him during the day.

Sansa had a thought so wicked she was at once wholly ashamed. But more than that, she wanted this big brute of a man to leave her alone.

  
With clammy hands and a hot pounding pulse, Sansa sneaked out the back door and went straight to the kennel where Dane was barking in a frothing frenzy, the boards of the kennel shaking with his agitation.

Rob had had him since he was a pup just as she’d had Lady, her old pet hound who’d died before they moved here. Sansa still could not bear to think of her untimely death. _The screech of tires as the fraud squad approached, Lady bounding ahead of her straight into the path of the oncoming bullet…_

  
She shuddered, shaking the memories away.

The man pounded again at the door and Sansa feared her mother would wake from all the commotion with Dane barking so ferociously.

Determined to see her plan through, she hastened to release Dane from the kennel, making sure to secure a firm grip around his collar. Swallowing her trepidation, she brought Dane to heel with a few whispers. Besides Robb, the large hound had always has a soft spot for her.  
When the great wolfhound ceased tugging at her, she led him towards the front of the house.

  
She’d just taken a step around the house to emerge before the front porch when the man immediately turned even though she’d gotten Dane to be quiet and she herself had barely made a sound.

  
He met her gaze with harsh eyes as unrelenting as the rocky dark brown mountainous cliffs that rose to the West.

  
Sansa forced herself not to look away from the simmering anger she saw on his face. “I told you, sir, I’m not going anywhere with you. You may think me a stupid little girl but you can’t make me go with you.”

The giant man smiled.

  
It was not so much a smile as a feral smirk, a mirthless, cruel twist of lips beneath the thick stubble of his beard and tangled scars. Unbidden she could feel all over again the way his beard had roved along the sensitive skin of her chin, rough and warm when she’d kissed him....

  
Sansa swallowed as he straightened to his full daunting height and began walking down the stairs towards her.

Encased in black combat boots, the man’s huge feet made the wooden steps creak. The whine of the wood under his heavy footfalls sounded ominous in the still morning air, a ticking alarm that signaled danger as each step brought him closer.

  
Canine gaze fixed on the giant man, Dane growled low in his throat as if to emphasize her firm stance.

  
Tilting his head in a decidedly familiar manner, the man’s dark eyes flicked from her to the great wolfhound at her side . She realized it was the same gesture Dane would make.   
  
“What would a little doll like you know about handling such a great beast?” the man murmured.

He was staring at Dane with a focus that unsettled her.

The wolfhound shifted on his huge paws, lowering his shaggy head to pin the approaching man with an unfriendly glare.

  
When he continued to take slow steps towards them, Sansa felt the first twinge of true unease. “Please sir, stay back! I-I just want you to leave. Don’t come any closer!”

  
_I won’t let Dane hurt him,_ she told herself. _He just needs to leave._

  
But to her growing horror, the man paid her no heed. Before she could command Dane to sit still, he always listened to her, the man was already within lunging distance and to her shock, he lowered himself to his knees and reached out a large hand towards the growling wolfhound.

To her shock, Dane's low snarls trickled off and he sniffed at the giant man's long fingers.

  
Breath caught in her throat, she watched as Dane went completely still as the man’s hand descended on his shaggy head and then after a few tense seconds, Dane, their ferocious wolfhound who never allowed anyone but Robb and herself to pet him, sat back on his great haunches and further lowered his head into the man’s touch as he scratched behind the wolfhound’s twitching ear.

  
Even crouching before her and the fierce wolfhound, he was still massive and it was surreal to hear the low noises he made in the back of his throat as he crooned to the wolfhound.

  
Sansa looked on in disbelief as Dane purred into the man’s hand, rubbing his nose against his long, thick fingers.

  
The man slowly raised his head and looked at her. “It’s a bit of a gamble, girl, to use one beast to scare away another.”

  
“How-what did you-how did you get him to like you?”

  
“My grandfather was a kennel-master, I grew up with all manner of dogs. They make better companions than their human counterparts most times. I’ve probably cared for dogs since before you were even born, girl.”

  
His words made her wonder exactly how old he was. He looked younger than Father but older than Robb. In the darkness of the hotel room, his face had been in shadows, she thought, conscious of the sudden heat in her cheeks.

  
The man petted the wolfhound for a few more moments then rising to his feet he insisted on helping her secure Dane again.

  
Sansa had forgotten how much he towered over her.

The tip of her nose almost brushed his massive chest and she remembered how she’d buried her face in the mat of soft hair that she _knew_ was there under his shirt.

  
He smelled of some masculine cologne but beneath that she could scent the smell of his skin, this time without the taint of liquor like she had that night.

  
Flustered to realize how near he was, she stumbled back a few steps.

  
Dane moved his great shaggy head towards her, nuzzling her belly as if to steady her before turning back with a furiously wagging tail for more of the giant man’s touch.

  
_Betrayer,_ Sansa thought with exasperation as she stared at how Dane nuzzled the man’s hand again.

  
He trailed her as she moved towards the cramped, tiny backyard with its muddy tufts of grass to take Dane back to his kennel. With every step she took, Sansa was uncomfortably aware of the man’s proximity at her back. He slid in front of her easily handling Dane’s collar as if he’d been doing it all his life and she watched, part amazed, part resentful how he effortlessly secured Dane in his spacious kennel. Robb had managed to ferret it from their family home before the Feds came to seize everything.

  
She made sure to check that Dane was indeed secured and then turned around to find him standing close behind her again.

  
“Excuse me, sir,” she mumbled trying to move past him.

  
He raised his large hands to her arms and she froze, eyes darting everywhere but at the hot, heavy feel of his gaze. His grip however was light on her for such a large man, gentle even.

  
“My name’s Sandor, girl. Sandor Clegane.”

  
Immediate heat flamed her face. She didn’t want to think of how she’d shared such startling, unexpected intimacy with this stranger, never even knowing his name…

  
“How did you find out where I lived?” she found herself asking.

  
“Your aunt Lysa. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell her about our…incident.”

  
Sansa grew even more discomfited as an awkward silence stretched between them. He slowly moved his hands from her arms.

  
“I’ve made the doctor’s appointment. Don’t look at me like that girl, it’s for your own bluidy good. This won’t take long.”

  
He rubbed a large hand on his shoulder and Sansa averted her eyes, thinking again of how he had used his powerful body within hers…

  
“Are you that afraid of doctors? Or is it just me you’re afraid of?” he asked gruffly.

  
“It’s not that. I don’t want to be a bother. I-I can go to the clinic in town. You don’t need to carry me to your doctor, sir.”

  
“I told you my name, girl! Or do you just really get off on calling me what a lady of the night would?”

  
“I’m addressing you, _sir_ , as a polite true lady would.”

  
He smirked down at her. “Well, girl, ladies mean something different to me.”

  
Embarrassment flooded her again as she thought of what kind of lady he’d mistaken her for.

  
This giant man named Sandor, the man she couldn’t get out of her mind since that god-forsaken night, seemed to see the shame on her face, she had never been able to hide what she was feeling, emotions painted bright on her cheeks as Robb always said.

  
The grin disappeared from his partly scarred lips. “And they were once innocent little dolls too.”

  
_And now I’m innocent no longer,_ the thought lingered as she stared at his mouth for a beat longer than she should. She caught herself and glanced away.

  
Again, that night haunted her with the memory of how natural it had seemed then to kiss him, with his body pressed along hers and her entire being humming from the pleasure he’d coaxed from her.

  
“I didn’t plan on this happening,” His voice was a rasp above her and she glimpsed up at him to see a flash of something in his eyes.

  
“But I’ve got to deal with it. And so must you. I won’t rest until I make sure that I haven’t fucking ruined your life!”

  
She gulped, a new wave of nerves cresting in her stomach. “You mean you- we- you-I mean to say …”

  
“For fucks sake, I’m bluidy clean. I always make sure of that. We can confirm that as well at the doctor. But I didn’t use any protection with you.” A dark blush coloured his unscarred cheek. “I’m not usually so drunk during my transactions and usually use further protection. You weren’t on any birth control, were you?”

  
She wondered at his clipped words.

Transactions he’d said.

  
_Transactions._

  
As if he’d conducted some cold, unfeeling business meeting. It made her strangely sad.

  
Sansa had always believed that she would give her virginity to the love of her life whenever she met him, someone she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Instead it had been taken by a man who considered satisfying his sexual needs as a business transaction.

  
The horror of what had happened, of her accidental deflowering was still fresh. Yet far too often for her comfort, the memories of the way he’d felt around her and within her would crowd out the shame and shock of what had happened.

  
“N-no. I’m not on birth control.” She forced herself to say the words, feeling like the silliest, stupidest girl to admit such to him.

  
He hissed out a sharp breath. “Alright. It’ll be fine, one way or another, I promise you that. The earlier we get you checked out, the better.”

  
He tilted her chin with long warm fingers so she had to look up at him. “So, you’ll go with me?”

  
With a sigh of defeat, she numbly nodded her acquiescence.

  
The back door swung open with a whine, startling them apart.

  
“SanSan! Are you out back?” It was Old Nan.

  
“SanSan?” Sandor inquired with a raised brow.

  
“It’s her nickname for me.” Sansa murmured, moving hurriedly toward the old woman who had helped her mother through all the births of her children in Winterfell.

  
Old Nan had rheumy eyes that saw much more than people gave her credit for. “And who is this strapping lad?”

  
Sansa realized that Sandor had followed her to the door. “Um, he’s…an acquaintance.”

  
Sandor bent to murmur in her ear, “You wound me, little doll.”

  
She flashed him a surprised look over her shoulder before she realized with a blush that he was actually teasing her. His sudden humor was startling and mind muddling all at once and Sansa could barely focus on what Old Nan was saying.

  
“Why you remind me of those dashing warriors of old, you do, like those great, big men from the far North with giants-blood in their veins. No doubt you’re as warm as a new winter’s cloak to be sure.”

  
“Nanna!” Sansa whispered, appalled and blushing redder than the roots of her hair.

  
Sandor was smirking again and he seemed to be enjoying this exchange with Old Nan, much to Sansa’s growing irritation.

  
“You flatter me, miss. Unfortunately, if you got a good look, you’d more like to think of me as a bluidy pile of old rags and not some fancy new cloak.”

  
Sansa stifled the urge to roll her eyes. “You can wait out front, walk around the back. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

  
“Sansa Sarah Stark!” Old Nan scolded. “Your mother, bless her ailing heart, would be appalled at your manners!”

  
“I agree, Nanna,” Sansa replied, using her nickname for the old wet nurse, a tradition some Northern families still kept.

  
“But mother also taught me that ungentlemanly men are not deserving of a lady’s courtesies.”

  
She abruptly shut the back door in his face and swiftly latched the lock. And then had the sudden, insane urge to giggle when a deep growl resounded from the other side of the door.

  
~

  
When she finally emerged from the old house, Sandor moved to hold open the door of the car for her. “This gentlemanly enough for you little doll?”

  
That grin tugged at his mouth again, stretching the mangled stripes of black and red scars on his face but his dark eyes danced.

  
_Who is he really?_ She wondered. Was he this almost playful man teasing her now or the hateful one she’d slapped yesterday on the porch of the old house?

  
She still couldn’t believe she’d done that! All her brothers called her the timid lamb of the Starks in a family whose ancient sigil had been the wild direwolf.

  
_Maybe there’s a bit of wolf in me after all…_

  
Before she could come up with a retort, he gently closed the door and came around and folded his massive form into the car, quickly overwhelming the small space of the vehicle.

  
The drive to the city where he’d made the doctor’s appointment was long and silent and Sansa savored the quiet, surprised that there was no heavy tenseness between them given the present situation. But the peacefulness between them was sucked away while they waited in the chilly reception room. Sandor’s face had hardened to stone again. His fists were clenched on his thighs and a tick hammered in his jaw. Sansa shifted nervously in her seat.

  
“Have you ever played ‘Let’s Play Doctor’?” Sansa blurted out and could have bitten her tongue after.

  
Yet to her consternation, she kept talking, hating more than ever at this moment her tendency to chatter away whenever she felt anxious. “I always played as a girl with my brothers. I mostly had to force them to play though, they’d much rather roam the wood but they’d always let me be the doctor and they’d always do races so that their hearts beat really fast before I used my stethoscope on them which was actually my hand cupped in a ball.”

  
Sandor seemed bewildered for a few seconds, his one thick brow drawn together with the scarred one in obvious confusion but then his dark eyes blazed once more.

“I’d usually run from my brother.”

  
“You mean he’d chase you? Robb always did that to me for the first snowfalls of the season, running after me with the biggest snowballs in his hands. I’m guessing you are the younger brother because I know older brothers live to annoy… ”

Sansa trailed off when Sandor inhaled a sharp breath and squeeze his eyes shut for a moment.

  
“Are you okay?” she asked tentatively.

  
His eyes met hers then and a small startled gasp escaped her. He was glaring at her, his gaze even darker with menace and in the harsh fluorescent light of the doctor’s lobby, the gnarled flesh of his scars gleamed.

She had stifled her curiousity as to how he got them not wanting to offend this volatile man but now she thought of how horribly he must have suffered and then she remembered where they were.

_He must hate being at the doctor, it must bring back memories of how badly he was injured._

  
He leaned toward her, appearing even fiercer than before. But when she glanced into his eyes again, she no longer saw rage there but a heavy weariness that was even more disconcerting than his anger.

  
“Most everyone would have an annoying older brother who would chase them with ice, I suppose.”

  
She thought she could hear a certain resignation in his voice.

  
“So, do you have an annoying older brother?” she whispered.

  
“No, little doll, I don’t.”

  
He glared at her again but she looked away quickly.

  
“Can’t bear to look at this beast another moment longer, can you little doll?”

  
“You know my name is Sansa, _sir._ ”

  
He barked into the sterile quiet of the lobby, snarling his laughter. “You’ve got guts, girl, I’ll give you that.”

  
“Or maybe I’m not as scared of you as you think I am.”

  
_I did have sex with you after all no matter how unwittingly,_ she thought with a hot blush.

  
He sobered, his amusement evaporating as he regarded her. “You should be.”

  
Sansa glanced around the lobby. Nerves took hold of her again as she thought of why he’d brought her here. Twisting her hands in her lap, she took a deep breath.

“What will I do if…if…you know…”

  
She couldn’t believe she was about to have this kind of conversation with practically a stranger.

Her dreams of having her own children someday had not been dampened by the torturous screams she’d overheard when Mother had laboured with Bran’s and Rickon’s births. She never would have believed she would have to contemplate the possibility of a child, her child, in such circumstances.

  
“We’ll take care of it,” Sandor said flatly.

  
Something in his tone was so cold in contrast to the constant flare of fury in his gaze. An involuntary shudder raked her.

“What do you mean?” she asked softly.

  
“Sansa Stark?” The receptionist announced her name.

  
With a brusque nod from Sandor, she slowly rose from her seat and went into the doctor’s office.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this crazy story of mine

She clutched at her purse, noticed a few papers sticking out and hastily pushed them back in her bag. Even with the chill of the air conditioning that permeated the office, sweat dotted Sansa’s palms as she followed the young receptionist. The dark young woman whose name tag on her shirt said Missandei turned to her and smiled warmly before opening the door that held an embossed sign of burnished gold.

  
“Doctor Daenerys Drogo at your service, ma’am.” She said softly, ushering Sansa inside.

  
She was relieved to discover that the doctor was also a woman who appeared to be only a few years older than Robb who was in his early twenties.

  
Missandei kindly asked her if she would like some coffee or tea. Sansa couldn’t stomach anything, not with the anxiety pummeling her but did accept a glass of water.

  
Doctor Drogo gave her a small welcoming smile, glancing down at an open file before her. “Hello, Miss Stark, please have a seat.”

  
She smoothed her damp palms on her knee length silk skirt, one of the best ones she’d salvaged from Winterfell before they had to move and hesitantly took the seat opposite the young doctor.

  
Missandei placed a glass of cool water at her right then left the room, closing the door silently behind her.

  
“How old are you Sansa?” Doctor Drogo asked. “I can call you Sansa right?”

  
“Of course,” she said politely. “I’m seventeen Doctor Drogo.”

  
“Please call me Daenerys.” The doctor smiled at her again with shrewd eyes. They were an unusual violet hue. Her focused gaze was in startling contrast to the chocolate brown hair she had restrained in a simple knot but Daenerys was a striking woman.

  
Sansa felt a little intimidated, recalling the last time she’d went to the doctor before they’d moved from Winterfell, to the old family physician Doctor Luwin who had served the Starks for ages even from the time before Father had met Mother. Visiting Doctor Luwin had been as comforting as visiting a favourite old uncle.

This doctor’s visit was leagues from that familiar comfort.

For one, she was here not for her usual checkup as she would when she was younger but for something of a far serious nature. Something that could irreparably change her life.  
Another thing that made her tense was that Daenerys was now assessing her, her unique violet eyes seeming to miss nothing, not the way Sansa couldn’t stop fidgeting with her fingers on the edge of the desk- she determinedly placed her hands in her lap in an effort to keep still- nor did this doctor miss the self-conscious heat in her cheeks or the fine beads of sweat that dotted her hairline.

  
“I understand the appointment was scheduled by a Mr. Clegane?”

  
Sansa nodded, gulping as she thought of the large man waiting patiently in the lobby.

Daenerys glanced down at the file splayed out in front of her again. “You’re here for a pregnancy test, blood tests and birth control.”

  
Sansa was nodding, sipping on the glass of water, until Daenerys mentioned birth control.

She sputtered into her glass, spilling a bit of water down her blouse and then to her utter mortification, she had an abrupt coughing fit.

  
Daenerys softly instructed her to take another small sip of water after she calmed somewhat. Instead of the recommended small sip, Sansa took a big gulp. Nerves returned with a vengeance, bubbling up in her throat to replace her spate of coughing.

  
“Usually I suggest that a client waits until she missed her period before testing for pregnancy but Mr. Clegane insisted on the most sensitive and accurate tests at the earliest possible convenience. So before we begin, I just wanted to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind?”

  
She looked into the gaze of the young doctor who seemed as if she could see right through her but the look in her eyes was kind. She voicelessly gave her assent with a slow nod.

  
“Good. Now, Sansa, I want you to understand that anything said in this room is confidential. I want you to feel assured talking to me, okay?” Daenerys waited until she nodded then she leaned toward Sansa, her voice lowered to a whisper. “Did Mr. Clegane have sex with you?”

  
She nodded, realizing that she was fumbling with her hands again. Sansa forced herself to keep them still. She reminded herself she was only nervous because she had never come to the doctor for these particular reasons before. When she’d first had her blood, Mother had explained that she now had a woman’s capacity to have a child but Mother hadn’t gone into the nitty-gritty of the dreaded sex talk and had never mentioned birth control. But why should she? Sansa had only been twelve when Mother had had that one singular and decidedly short conversation with her about her monthly blood and her newly changing body.

  
“Did he force you?”

  
Sansa was immediately taken aback by Daenerys’ soft but pointed question. With Daenerys’ penetrating gaze on her, she found herself blurting the first thing that came to mind. “It was just a mistake.”

  
She tried to shove back the memories, especially here seated before this doctor who regarded her with such concern but Sansa could only think of the rough way he had slid into her and that first blinding pain. But then the pleasure of the morning after when he’d taken her again assailed her as she sat there, avoiding Daenerys’ perusal.

  
She almost gasped as a lightening swift shard of that remembered pleasure shot through her lower belly and straight to the center of her. Shifting somewhat uncomfortably, she pressed her thighs together, clasping her hands in her lap until her knuckles turned white.

  
_Remember where you are and why you’re here,_ she reminded herself desperately.

  
“But was it consensual?” Daenerys asked.

  
Sansa snagged her bottom lip between her teeth and met Daenery’s gaze. She recalled the way she’d bitten him that night, so hard that she’d tasted his blood.

She knew under normal circumstances, she would not have gone that far with him, a stranger she didn’t know, a great harsh brute of a man who was far from the gallant slender beautiful males she wrote about in her secret cache of stories. But she couldn’t deny any longer that being with him had also shocked her out of her mind. She would never have imagined that such pleasure could be felt with that intimate act.

  
All the moments she’d been thinking about him since that night had not just been a rehashing of what had happened. She was forced now to acknowledge that she’d been harboring a burning curiosity as well.

_Oh dear heavens, I want him._

  
“Yes.” She decided. “Yes it was consensual.”

Sitting here in the deliberate cold of this unexpectedly warm doctor’s office, Sansa fully faced the thought that had been at the back of her mind all week.

  
The thought of being with him again.

  
The thought shamed her more than anything else.

  
Mother, who had always emphasized the glory and sanctity of marriage would be horrified if she knew what Sansa had done, what she still wished to do with this older, rough man. Father, who considered her as the embodiment of the Northern mythological Maiden herself, would be so disappointed and Robb…Sansa swallowed. She didn’t want to think of how her protective older brother would react if he ever found out what happened.

  
Daenerys didn’t seem completely assured but she nodded anyway and then with a smooth efficiency, began carrying out the methods Sansa had to take to get her tests done. Normally fearful of injections and the like, Sansa hardly flinched from the sting of the needle in her arm.

  
She was so torn about her new realization.

  
A part of her was horrified that she was attracted to him, this rude overbearing man who had mistaken her for a lady of the night, who had recklessly taken her virginity as if she was just a common whore. Sansa blushed heavily as she thought of the word.

  
And then there was that constant low throb in the pit of her belly whenever she thought of their night together.

She’d heard him call himself a beast out there while they waited in the lobby and he had taken her like one but now Sansa despairingly thought it was as if a beast was awakened within _her_. A sexual beast brought to life by her encounter with him.

  
She tried her best to focus as Daenerys asked her more questions, this time not of a personal nature but things like the date of her last period and the like. And then she said the results would be ready in two hours.

"We have our own in-house lab so the results are quicker." Daenerys added that usually the test results took twenty four hours. Sansa thanked her and made her way back to the quiet lobby area.

  
A sudden shyness descended over her at the thought of facing him again.

Especially after what she had fully realized in the doctor’s office. _How could I want him?_ He said himself this was an accident.

  
When she re-emerged back to the waiting area, he was still sitting there dwarfing what would should have been quite roomy seat in a wide legged stance with his long legs and heavy chest in dark shirt and pants, elbows on his sturdy thighs, fists clasped on his chin as he contemplated the polished tile with hooded eyes.

Part of her expected that he wouldn't be there waiting. She didn't know if it was relief or apprehension she felt now.

His ebony hair fell around his face partially covering his scars and despite the sterility of their surroundings, he seemed like the image of the old Northern myth of the Stranger himself, a dark visage straight out of one of Nanna’s stories.

  
He straightened up as she came closer. “How did it go?”

  
She was surprised by the worry she could see for an instant in the harsh planes of his face. Looking at him was something to behold in the most fearful of ways.

Even Doctor Daenerys had asked if he’d forced her.

  
She supposed that most people would distrust him on sight because of the very hugeness of him as well as his frightful scars. There was definitely an atmosphere of unspoken danger about him. And his gruff manner of speaking certainly didn’t help with first impressions.

  
_But it is sort of unfair to be constantly judged because of your appearance,_ she thought.

  
She murmured that the doctor told her the test results would be ready in a couple hours. He nodded brusquely, wiping his palms on his dark denim. She peeked at the coarse hair that covered the back of his hands. His fingers were so long and thick and strong looking, nails blunt and short she was pleased to note (something about long nails on a man freaked her out) as he tapped them on his equally strong looking thighs. _He’s just about as nervous as I am_. The realization made her own nerves lessen slightly.

He asked her if she was hungry and Sansa was surprised to find that she was starving. They went to the coffee shop next door and she thought it funny how he being so big barely touched his meaty sub while she who was usually a dainty eater, practically inhaled down her chicken salad and two huge lemon muffins. It was only after she noticed his silence and realized he was staring at her and she lowered her eyes feeling self conscious all over again. Wiping her mouth carefully, she thanked him for lunch after he insisted on paying.

Instead of saying you're welcome like normal people would he chose to point out that she didn't have a doll's appetite. His face was so stoic she couldn't tell if he was teasing or not.

“Why did you decide to find me? You could have left this at it is.” she blurted out.

He glanced away, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t like leaving loose ends, little doll. I don’t want some kid to show up on my doorstep one day. As I said, I’m usually more careful than this.”

She didn’t want to be reminded again of his _transactions._

Sansa quickly refreshed herself at the bathroom before they headed back to the doctor's. 

It was after they reclaimed their seats in the waiting area when he slid something out of his pocket, a thin fold of familiar draft paper.

With dawning horror, Sansa realized it was one of her manuscripts she always carried in her purse.

  
“This fell from your bag when you got up to go into the doctor’s.”

  
_Please, please, please don’t have read it._

  
But her silent pleas were in vain.

  
“Quite a fairytale you’ve written there. Must’ve lost your buggering mind when you woke up and saw this Prince Charming next to you.”

  
She grabbed at the manuscript. “You shouldn’t have read that….it was private.”

  
“The Little Doll doesn’t want me to see her tales of chivalrous knights and fair maidens.” He sneered.

  
“Are you always this hateful?”

  
“Hateful?” His snarling laughter shattered the quiet of the room again. “You know nothing of what hate is truly like. You may prefer to have your pretty little head in the clouds but some of us prefer to keep our feet firmly planted in reality.”

  
“You shouldn’t have read it.” she murmured again, hating the pitiful whine of her voice. At the same time she was exasperated at how pleased she felt to know that _he_ thought of her as pretty even if he was being mocking about it.

But no one had ever read that particular draft.

She lowered her eyes from his blazing ones, feeling as if he had peeled back another layer of her, exposing her mercilessly yet again in a totally different way than how he had stripped her bare that night.

  
He gave a heavy sigh. “No little doll, perhaps I shouldn’t have read it. Shouldn’t have done a lot of things, actually.”

  
There was that resignation in his voice again that she’d detected earlier when they’d talked of older brothers. She thought then of what he’d said about his brother, that he had to run from him and she wondered what he meant by that.

  
“In spite of that outright swooning of yours over your sodding knights, from what I read, you’ve got some talent, girl.” He said this almost grudgingly.

  
“You really think that?”

  
“You think I’d say something like that to make you feel better? I’m not one of those buggering gentlemen you’re so fond of writing about.” He growled.

  
Sansa looked down at her fingers. He didn't consider himself a gentleman she thought, but he did seek her out to make sure no long lasting consequences had occurred...

  
“So you want to be a writer then?” he asked gruffly with the awkward air of someone not accustomed to asking such generic questions.

  
“It’s something I’ve always enjoyed.” She felt shy about mentioning the essay competitions she’d won at school. “I’m supposed to start the undergraduate creative writing program at UW in September…I really love researching the medieval history and myths of Westeros.”

  
Sansa had always thought that her Nana’s bedtime stories of giants and monsters from the far north combined with her early fascination of Westeros’ royal culture had fuelled her inclination to write.

  
“Truth be told, you do look straight out of some medieval fairytale.” He muttered.

  
“Are you saying that I look like a princess, Sandor?” 

  
Something changed in his gaze then, his eyes widening slightly before he moved his gaze to her cheeks which she knew was probably as red as her hair again. Ughh, she was even more put out at this moment by her irrepressible blushing habit.

  
“Yes, like a bluidy princess who should never have been in the Summer Isles to begin with. What were your parents thinking sending a young girl like you there anyway?”

  
The lightheartedness she was beginning to feel disappeared as suddenly as the sun constantly did behind Winterfell’s grey clouds.

  
She looked him straight in the eye. “I’m not a child. Not anymore.”

  
He looked at her from her face down to her body and back. His stare was almost a tangible thing as if he could touch her with his eyes alone.  
Heart hammering in her throat, she licked her dry lips when he placed his forearms on his knees and leaned towards her.

  
“No you’re not.” His voice was raspier than usual and his scent wafted over her again with his closer proximity.

  
And that beast awakened inside her again, stretching and unfurling its limbs deep in her belly.

  
She squirmed on the cold seat but she felt almost feverish. Some instinct made her lean a little closer towards him. She could see the scarred tissue of his left cheek in much more detail under this bright fluorescent light but she did not find her gaze lingering there. Instead she looked at his lips shrouded in the stubble of his beard, noted how the left corner was as scarred as his cheek and up to his hairline. But she remembered how warm his mouth had felt on hers.

  
She couldn’t make sense of this gravitation she felt towards him. He was this immense magnet pulling her into his orbit. His eyes were even darker it seemed, his gaze roving over her face and she could see something like disbelief stamped in them.

  
Someone firmly cleared their throat. The sound sliced through the heated fog in her head and she drew sharply away from him.

  
Doctor Daenarys was standing not a few feet from them, her wide violet eyes darting between them.

  
Sansa slowly leaned back in her seat, still feeling his gaze on her.  
She was silently freaking out when Sandor finally glanced at the doctor.

  
_What was that?_ She screamed internally.

  
Had she just been about to kiss him right here in the doctor’s lobby? Good grief, she had to get control of herself! How could she desire him like this, someone who had lavished the sort of attention on her meant for a woman far different from her? She wasn’t even sure if she liked him, would usually be put off by his horrible attitude but her body wouldn’t listen to her rational musings.

  
“The test results are ready if you would both please follow me.”

  
Reality crashed back into her muddled mind at Daenerys’ softly uttered words.

  
Sandor’s right cheek had gone pale and he scratched at the scars on his left with one massive hand. Sansa marveled that for this moment at least he looked just as scared as Rickon when Mother had caught him sneaking back in after having run off to the woods yet again back home in Winterfell.

  
That look of absolute fear on his face made her want to giggle quite inappropriately given the situation. Looking at him one would be inclined to think that nothing could ever scare him.

  
Composing herself, she gracefully rose to her feet and followed Daenerys back into the office, sensing his presence just behind her though his feet never made a sound on the cold tile.

  
It was only after they were both seated and Daenerys settled again behind her desk, that the flutter of nerves returned making her stomach churn in quite a different way than the tingles she’d felt when they were in the lobby. Thank goodness the doctor had shown up when she did!

  
His thickly muscled arm brushed against hers as he overwhelmed his own chair. She still couldn’t believe that she was going to kiss the brutish man sitting beside her. She couldn’t forget how mean he’d been to her yesterday when he’d found her and he hadn’t even apologized for it really. Not that he seemed to be the apologetic type. Given how he’d practically shepherded her to this doctor he was more the proactive type, getting things done with no room for dawdling with regret as she was more prone to do.

  
“It would seem that you would have no need for birth control, Sansa. At least not for the next few months.” Daenerys said, her face grave as she glanced at Sandor. “The pregnancy test was positive.”

  
In the heavy silence that followed Daenerys’ announcement all feeling left her, the little polite smile on her lips freezing in place.

Despite everytthing she hadn't been expecting to hear that. Becoming pregnant had seemed like just a mere idea, as something that could never happen to her.

  
She couldn’t even look at him there beside her but she could feel the waves of tension emanating from his large frame and suddenly the numbing quiet was shattered as he pushed back his chair with such violence that it toppled over.

She was startled out of her shocked reverie and watched as he raked his huge hands through his hair and paced away from the desk, turning his broad back to her, his head buried in his fists.

  
Daenerys leaned toward her patting her hand. “Sansa, are you alright?”

  
“It was only that one time.” She hadn’t realized she’d spoken her thought aloud until a muffled reply sounded behind her.

  
“Twice actually.”

  
His raspy statement brought the life back to her cheeks with flaming self-consciousness.

She almost hid her face in her hands then. Of course she knew what he meant as Daenerys glanced between them quizzically.

  
Sandor strode back to the desk. “I’d like to have another test done.”

  
“Of course,” Daenerys said, calm and unruffled in the face of Sandor’s brutal scowl. “But I must inform you that blood tests are ninety nine percent accurate even given the very early stage of this pregnancy.”

  
She turned to Sansa, telling her the other tests completed were fine and that she was quite healthy and she was just one week along. Sansa barely managed to nod in response.

  
“There is a very slim chance that the test might be inaccurate but that is extremely rare. It seems you have high hormone levels already at such an early stage, Sansa. I would suggest as well that we do another test to confirm around the time you would expect your period.”

  
Sansa winced, discomfort shrouding her as she knew he could hear every word.

  
Sandor had resumed his pacing but stilled when Daenerys began speaking of prenatal vitamins and the routine checkups she would have to complete, saying that she was also a licensed midwife and had personal experience as she was the mother of triplets.

  
Daenerys had started to go into a warm recounting of her own triplet pregnancy, mother’s pride shining in her unusual eyes when Sandor abruptly cut in. “That’ll be all doc. We’ll take it from here.”

For the first time since her entire world had been shifted, Sandor looked at her. “I’ll take you back home.”

  
Swallowing past the growing apprehension rising in her parched throat, she rose to her feet. “Thank you, Daenerys.”

  
“Take care of yourself, Sansa. And remember you can always call me anytime if you have any questions or concerns.” Daenerys pressed a card into her hand.

  
The drive back from the doctor was just as silent as when they had been going except there was no peaceful quiet between them now but a roiling heaviness that made her shift uncomfortably in her seat.

She noticed how tightly Sandor was clutching the steering wheel, his eyes focused with harsh intensity on the road before them. They hadn’t spoken a word once since they left doctor Daenerys’ office.

  
Finally they arrived back at the old house which seemed a hairsbreadth away from crumbling.

  
Just as her world had.

  
The icy shock was thawing rapidly now and she suddenly couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t have a baby now! Especially with a practical stranger.

  
Her childhood dreams of motherhood had revolved around her meeting her real-life modern, fairytale prince first. She’d been reared to become a wife before a mother. Her family was already in turmoil, torn away from their ancestral home and now she threatened to make everything worse with her new circumstances.  
She thought of her mother becoming even more ill with this news and how Father and Robb would be so disappointed in her.

Turning to stare at the frail house the Starks had attempted to make into a home, it was all suddenly too much and to her horror, she burst into tears.

  
Slapping her palms over her face, she tried to hide the evidence of her outburst but she couldn’t stifle the sob that broke free.

  
The vibration of the car’s engine cut off until there was only silence and her muffled sobbing.

And then warmth surrounded her.

She could feel his large hands pressing against her back as he drew her close. Sansa tried to rein in her anguish but the heaving sobs wouldn’t stop pouring out of her and soon his shirt was drenched where she’d pressed her face into his chest. He patted her back and though his hands were heavy, and his fingers moved somewhat awkward and unsure, she clung to him all the same.

  
“There, girl, crying won’t fix this.”

  
She raised her face, dashing the back of her hand against her sore, swollen lids. He pressed some tissues into her palm and she took them gratefully, mortified that she was forced to blow noisily into them.

  
He grasped her shoulders then and tilted her chin with one cupped hand. His hand could cover all of her face and then some but he held her with the lightest of touches though she still had no choice but to look up at him. Even seated in the car he loomed above her.

She was surprised to note how calm he seemed. But when she looked into his eyes, she could see something there, like a shadow one spied out of the corner of an eye. She couldn’t determine what that shadow meant or how he felt though she wanted to know even if she wouldn’t dare ask him. But he didn’t seem to be angry, not like when he’d first found her and for that she felt slightly reassured.

  
“Listen to me girl, no more crying over this. I told you, we’ll take care of it.”

  
“You mean, we’ll take care of the baby?”

  
For a moment he looked stricken.

Gruffly shaking his head, he blinked rapidly a few times before focusing on her once again with that direct stare.

  
Sansa felt that warm flush overtake her again at their closeness. He was still touching her, his hand cradling her chin and it felt as if he was gripping her with his gaze as well.

  
“You haven’t even lived yet, little doll. Genes such as mine shouldn’t be passed on, shouldn’t be the cause of your life being ruined.”

  
A pang of sadness assailed her as she realized that this man Sandor was full of such self-recrimination that it fueled his seemingly constant anger. She wondered what events in his life molded him to be that way. 

  
“We’ll take care of it.” He whispered again, as if speaking more to himself than her.

  
_We’ll take care of it._

  
That’s what he’d said in the lobby and again, now.

  
And she knew then what he truly meant.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have sped up the timeframe of a pregnancy blood test a teensy bit :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't wait to finish this chapter so posting something short to tide over until the next update ::)

She could see how terrified he was.

  
This fierce man, who upon first glance inspired such terror, was _terrified_.

  
As much as she wouldn’t like to admit it, she knew it would be so easy to ‘take care of it’ as he said.

But something rose in her, maybe it was some buried mother’s instinct even if she felt no different physically, at least not yet. Or maybe it was the sudden memory of when Rickon was a baby when she’d helped Mother take care of him. And she knew then she wasn’t going to take the easy way out, they weren’t going to ‘take care of it’ as he suggested.

  
She took confidence in the strength of her own decision. “I won’t do what you’re suggesting. I’m not going to get rid of this.”

  
Usually so soft-spoken, for a moment she didn’t recognize her own voice.

  
“You don’t know what you’re doing, girl, the risks you’re taking and for what? A stranger’s seed? The later you leave this, the worse it’ll get for you.”

  
“I’m not going to do it.”

  
Sheer panic engulfed his face as he looked at her and quite shockingly, she felt a frisson of sympathy for him. She could easily see that he had faced nothing like this before.

  
She watched as he worked to compose himself, turning away from her for a few seconds before glaring back at her with a snarl that would have intimidated her if not for her newfound calm.

  
“I knew a girl like you once. Believed in fairytales and true love just as you no bluidy doubt do. Believed in doing the right thing no matter how difficult it was. She lived with a monster but still saw the good in everyone. Lot of good it did her.

"There was no knight to save her when the monster came for her. All she had was a little clueless pup who couldn’t save her from that monster. And after that monster tore her virgin’s blood from her, she sought refuge in the only thing certain in this life. Death. Because everything good in her, everything she believed in, was destroyed with one act. She couldn’t face the world after that. She could have root out what that Monster sowed in her and lived! She chose to die instead.”

  
He fell silent, no longer looking at her.

  
He must have loved this girl very much, she thought. A curious mix of pity blended with something darker surged through her.

  
The static quiet in the car grew almost unbearable.

  
“Who was she?” Sansa whispered.

  
Sandor still was not looking at her but at something unseen through the windshield.

  
“She was my sister.”

  
A chill settled in her stomach but that dark something that had tugged at her moments before disappeared.

  
“And the…the monster?” she asked softly, feeling as if she should whisper so as not to disturb his reverie.

  
“He was the same blood as me. He raped her.”

  
_Does he think he’s like this monster who raped his sister?_ Sansa placed her hand on his shoulder. His arm was tense and rock solid.

  
“I’m so sorry.”

  
“None of your sanctimonious sorrys can do any good now.” He growled.

  
She slid her hand away, hating to feel how rigid his body was with tension. So unlike when they’d lain close together…

  
“Sandor, what happened that night between us was an accident. You didn’t rape me. I-”

  
“Then you’re foolish if you think that!” He interrupted her harshly. “And you’re even more stupid to believe that you can get through this without ruining yourself in the process. You think I won’t drag you off to another doctor to see this through?”

  
He turned to her then with all the ferocity of a rabid beast but she could see a sheen in his feral gaze that hadn’t been there before, a sparkle of droplets he’d never let fall.

  
_He’s so afraid of what’s happening. And he feels guilty about that night…_

  
She met his stare head on, no longer a frightened doe trapped in his glaring fury.

  
“You won’t hurt this baby.”

  
They stared at each other, he in his fury, eyes shining and her with silent determination. It was he who finally turned away, pressing a heavy palm to his eyes.

  
“Little Doll,” he choked out.

  
“Why would you ever want a constant reminder of the way I forced you?”

  
“This is not your decision, Sandor.”

She saw a shudder rake him briefy.

  
“It’s mine. And you didn’t force me. I don’t think of that night like that. Not anymore. Now, it’s your decision if you’d want to, um, be involved.” She added gently.

  
“You’d want me? To be involved?”

He seemed disbelieving. “You don’t know me, little doll. If you did, you’d take the safest way out of this as quickly as you can and be done with it. If not, you’d be tied to this old dog for life. Is that what you want?”

  
Uncertainty returned with his words.

  
She couldn’t imagine that being tied to _her_ was something he would want, he’d said it himself that the only relationships he had was of a decidedly sexual nature. He had no shame in admitting he paid for sex, he’d made it sound almost clinical and the very idea was far-fetched to her, that sex was not borne out of love but could be something so detached and perfunctory.

  
Except she couldn’t ascribe the term perfunctory to what had happened between them.

  
“I’ll ask just one thing of you for now, little doll.”

  
She looked at him expectantly. His dark brown eyes were now clear of any sheen and his face was that mask of stoicism again. His eyes were so much more compelling than his scars. The welts and whorls of disfigured flesh stamped from his left hairline to chin spoke a sad story of their own but the emotions that blazed from his gaze, the anger and self-hate and rage, screamed at her from the expressionless set of his features.

  
“Just think about this for a few hours, a few days.” He said. “Really think about it. Then you can tell me if you still want to go through with this.”

  
She nodded, lowering her gaze from the intensity of his.

  
“Is there anything you need?”

  
She shook her head. “I don’t expect you to take care of me. I have a job waiting back for me in the Summer Isle.”

  
“You’re going back there?”

  
She raised her head at the sheer incredulity in his voice. “What? It’s not as if I’m sick. Doctor Daenerys said it herself, I’m as healthy as can be. I’m still going to live my life, Sandor.”

  
“You don’t belong there. A little doll like you should be in a pretty manse somewhere safe, away from the monsters out there. Going to the Summer Isles is what got you in this mess in the first place.”

  
“I can’t stay here. I won’t be a burden to my mother. I, um, know that it’ll be a while before I start showing. I’ve got a little money saved. I will be fine.”

 _"I will be fine."_ That's what Mother always said to Father before he went on any lengthy business trip.

  
But it was Father's resilient Stark pride that lay strong within her.

Sansa would not become a charity case.

Sure she would not live the quiet lavish lifestyle in which she’d grown up but she would make do until she could do better. In the meantime she fully intended to proceed with her plans of attending college. It could be done, she was determined. Mother had worked right up until her labour with all four of her pregnancies, including Sansa’s.

Before her mental collapse, Catelyn Stark had been a formidable woman.

  
Also, Sansa was quite familiar with the changes a woman’s body went through during pregnancy as she’d avidly observed when Mother had been pregnant with both Bran and Rickon. She’d been closely involved in the rearing of her younger brothers, particularly Rickon who thought of her as his second mother rather than a sister. Mother had been a multi-tasking, do-it-all woman, never entrusting her young ones to nurseries or even hiring nursemaids when they could have afforded it, only having her trusted Old Nan who had also helped rear Father and his siblings as well.

Old Nan was as much a treasured relic of Winterfell as much as the ancient Stark castle was a monument of the North. She had been a cherished part of the legacy of Winterfell as much as it’s old godswood or its eternal hot springs.

  
Sansa missed it there.

  
She noticed suddenly that Sandor was looking at her, his dark brown eyes perusing her from where she sat beside him in the air-conditioned car as if he couldn’t reconcile her slender body changing in any way.

Shifting abashedly, she felt her cheeks grow warm.

  
Their almost kiss in the doctor’s office assailed her again.

She forced herself to move back a bit from where they sat so close together.

  
He must think her as eager as his ladies of the night had been, she thought with a shudder. He'd said as much himself.

She hated the idea of that.

Hated that yes she _wanted_ him but she wanted in no way to be anything like those ladies. And yet her body wouldn’t listen to her. Even now she could feel the tips of her breasts pebbling against the soft cotton of her bra and that tantalizing heat licked at her low belly in a way that was becoming quite familiar to her now. It must be his scent, she thought despairingly.

  
He smelled so good.

  
“You shouldn’t go back there. The Summer Isle’s no safe place for a girl like you.” He muttered again.

  
“It isn’t I suppose. Actually, it’s not a safe place for someone who drinks a lot either.”

  
Sansa almost covered her mouth with her hand, shocked she’d let her thought slip free and she didn’t dare to look at him now.

  
The atmosphere in the vehicle grew ominous and she could practically feel the tension roiling off him as he stiffened beside her.

  
To her surprise, she heard a deep sigh.

  
“I haven’t had a drop since that night.”

  
“I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that-"

  
“Don’t apologize for having a little snap to your bite, girl. There’s no benefit in being the fragile doll you look like. Too many people don’t tell it like it is.”

  
She finally peeked at him.

  
He was staring at her again and she was surprised to see that one corner of his mouth was tilted up in what could have been a semblance of a grin.

  
“I should go now.” She said, glancing towards the house. Robb would be back soon from his shift and she wasn’t ready to face that battle yet.

  
He nodded gruffly. “I’ll meet you back here in a couple days. Call me before if you change your mind.”

  
A different heat than the one he made tingle in her belly surged through her. “I’m not going to change my mind.”

  
“The little doll does have a bit of wolf in her, doesn’t she?” he murmured.

She watched as he rubbed at his shoulder with his long fingers and she remembered the way she’d bitten down into his flesh that night.

  
She’d marked him in her own way she supposed, just as he’d permanently marked her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so happy to read all your reviews! Making me excited to continue this story! Thank you soo much for reading :D


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor reflects and he finds out some new info

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally back with another update. Going a bit slower than I thought because of work commitments snd some re-writing :(  
> This is unbeta'd stuff so please excuse any inconsistencies.  
> Hope you all enjoy and thank you so much for reading :)

He watched as she slipped from the car.

Watched as she glanced back at him once, almost shyly before moving into the tiny front yard.

Still stayed there watching as she moved up those shaky stairs.

The door burst open and a small boy with shaggy red hair a little paler than hers ran out.

Sandor could hear his high, shrill tone as he greeted the little doll. She gathered the boy in her arms, hugging him close.

They made a pretty picture, she and her baby brother embracing warmly and watching them struck something within him he had believed was long dead.

As he slowly drove away, something else tugged at the back of his mind.

Some elusive memory that had been nipping at him all through that tense doctor’s visit…

And much to his annoyance, all through the drive back to the hotel where he was staying in the old city of Winterfell until this...incident was resolved, Sandor found that he couldn’t get his mind off the little doll.

He couldn’t believe he’d told her about Eleanor. He’d never talked about his sister with anyone before.

Perhaps it was the shock of the doctor’s visit still churning in him that made him blurt it all out to her or maybe he’d wanted to frighten her, shake her out of her naïve stubbornness.

Yet there was also something about her that made him talk more than he should. Maybe it was the way she truly looked at him. Apart from the first instance when he’d first seen her behind that hotel desk in the Summer Isles and when he’d spoken to her after seeking her out, she did not shy away from staring him straight in the face. She looked at him while he spoke, even if he’d said some harsh things to her that he was surprised to recognize he was regretting now.

He’d almost fallen off his seat in shock the first time she’d called him by his name in the doctor’s reception room. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had called him Sandor. Coming from her lips, she made his name sound like he was something good.

_She looks you in the face and calls you by your name and it’s enough to make you a besotted cunt?_

He cursed aloud as his body hardened and his heart pounded all over again at the mere memory of how she’d leaned closer to him as if she was about to kiss him right there in the bluidy doctor’s office.

Sandor was not a man who kissed anyone.

He was not a man women wanted to kiss.

The little doll insisted on shocking him and he wasn’t sure he liked that. He surely did not like the possibility of becoming a more pitiful version of his unofficial namesake, a starved Hound lapping up any attention she deemed to give him.

 _But aye, I would have kissed her right there,_ he thought. The same way he’d kissed her that night after he’d recovered from the momentary disbelief of feeling her soft, silky mouth moving over his.

Sandor had never been kissed like that.

The only kisses he could remember were from a long dead mother. And his sister.

Suppressing a bitter chuckle, he realized that their night together had not only been a first time for her but for him as well.

Again, that elusive something pulled at his mind. He shook his head, dispelling the feeling that there was something about her that he should remember.

 _For fuck’s sake, I’m thinking about her enough as it is_.

It was pure gut instinct that made him seek her out and insist she take the pregnancy test. His instinct had never led him wrong before, especially on his missions for the Lannisters. But this was something altogether different, far more nerve-wracking than facing any Lannister enemy. He had thought the doctor’s visit would be just a ritual check, his instinct be damned.

Nothing like this had ever happened to him before.

Sandor was accustomed to living a solitary life outside of his career engagements and he might even say he cherished that sort of life. He had learned to do everything alone since he’d run off to join the stunt crew and even when he’d been a Lannister man, most of his missions he’d spearheaded alone. There was no place in his life for, God help him, a child. Or its mother… who was barely past the age of childhood herself. Despite what she’d said at the doctor’s, she was no full woman yet even if she looked like one.

 _Seventeen,_ he thought with a strange twist to his chest, seeing all over again the way she’d looked at him with those wide summer sky eyes.

Her pure innocence was bruising to him, to a seasoned, jaded, embittered man like him.

He’d been expecting her to be shocked when he told her of his proposed solution to their situation. Instead she’d faced him down and she’d said no. Hearing her so staunchly refuse had lit a fear in him almost as powerful as the flames that had disfigured his face. She was actually planning on seeing this through.

She _wanted_ to have his baby.

He hadn’t expected that, had thought she would have been relieved at having the option of a swift end to their dilemma.

Against the tumult of his raging terror, he’d felt a sharp spike of admiration at her firm stance. The little doll was intent on doing the ‘right’ thing, even if it might ruin her.

It was something he thought he could regret for the rest of his life, ruining an innocent young life like hers. Just as Eleanor’s life had been ruined…

Thinking about his lost sister again made him tremble with contempt, not for her but for himself and the fresh failure of his vow to never get a woman pregnant, to never do to another woman what Gregor had done to their sister. This girl, this Sansa could not know the task to which she’d set herself, could not know how much her staunch stubbornness could shatter her future. It was one thing that his carefully ordered single life of solitude was in jeopardy but Sansa’s ignorance made him want to shake some sense into her.

As always, whenever he was in a place where he felt as if he was losing control, he’d lashed out. He winced as he remembered his harsh threat to her. _“You think I won’t drag you off to another doctor to see this through?”_

The pores had prickled at his nape at her softly uttered response. _“You won’t hurt this baby.”_

Accustomed as he was to confronting fear from most people he faced, her certainty in him, her damned blind trust that he wouldn’t harm this...this… _baby_ …was unfamiliar to him. But as much as he felt uncomfortable with this situation, he knew he wouldn’t be able to just turn his back and leave.

And then there was her insistence on returning to the Summer Isle of all places. He for one could understand the need to establish oneself and he did admittedly admire her independence. Her stance to make it on her own without burdening her family reminded him of when he’d left the Clegane Manor at sixteen, albeit his circumstances had been markedly different what with him fleeing from Gregor and that dreary manse surrounded by those haunting cliffs to live on the streets. But even as a youth he’d already been a big brute, towering over men twice his age while she was, from what he’d observed, a sheltered girl who couldn’t defend herself from the more unsavory characters in the Summer Isle.

 _Someone’s going to have to keep an eye on her._ Sandor shifted uncomfortably, squeezing the steering wheel. _But I’m not one of those buggering knights she loves writing about._

~

Later, as he fielded calls from his agent, that thing that had been niggling at the back of his mind struck him nearly as sharp as the feel of her palm against his cheek, when she’d slapped him the first time he’d seen her after that night.

It was her name. Her family name. It resounded within him with a hint of familiarity.

After a call to an old associate he found out why.

“It’s the bluidy Hound!” Tormund’s voice boomed over the line. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your call, buddy?”

Sandor stifled his snarling urge to tell the ginger headed fool he was no buggering buddy of his.

“Need to find out if the Starks and the Lannisters are still allied.”

“Where the hell were you, living under a rock on the Quiet Isle?" Tormund cackled.

Sandor had had a lengthy tenure on the Isle of the reclusive monks early in his career when shortly after leaving the Lannisters, he 'd gotten his first stunt contract for a documentary filmed on the Isle. Tormund had teased him mercilessly that time he had called Sandor to get some info from him, wondering if the Hound had gone celibate.

Tormund was a Guard for the Wildings, a private company in the far north beyond the walls of Westeros that orchestrated stealthy missions for wealthy patrons.

"Ned Stark was thrown in the Black Cells on the charges of conspiring to kill Robert Baratheon and defrauding his son out of his inheritance." The Wildling added.

"Baratheon's widow, Cersei Lannister and her father's out for Stark's blood. The wolves and the lions are at war.”

He listened intently as Tormund told him that the Starks were tangled in a dispute with the mighty Lannisters of Casterly Rock after an alliance that had begun amicably when Robert was alive ended in animosity after his death.

As a result, the Stark patriarch had been framed for Robert's murder and for fraud by the Lannisters. Tywin Lannister, according to Tormund’s sources, had already trained Gregor, their goriest Guard, to torment Stark in the Black Cells, the worst pits of prisons in Westeros.

 _The little doll's father,_ Sandor realized.

“The Lannisters have set their sights on acquiring the Starks’ frozen assets," Tormund said. "Word is that Stark and his family will be at the mercy of the lion’s fiercest dog yet, no offense to you, Hound. Even we Wildlings would think twice to go up against the Mountain and his horde of butchers.”

“Any word on when?” Sandor asked.

“It’s only a matter of some small time before the Mountain finds them. The Starks were forced to move from Winterfell. Heard they didn’t go far. Some of my buddies here say the Mountain is eager to be finished with this business, that he has a fresh new bride to wed and bed, a present from the lions if he’s successful at this hit. Word has it that it’s ‘posed to be the Stark’s only daughter given as a prize, the final 'fuck you' from the lions to the old wolves of Winterfell.”

A chill skipped down Sandor’s spine.

 _Stark's only daughter._  

He knew all too vividly what befell the Mountain’s former brides. If Sandor hadn't already ruined her, the Mountain would fully destroy the little doll.

 _Sansa. Her name is Sansa._ He reminded himself.

He remembered the call that evening in the hotel of the Summer Isle he’d received from the Mountain inviting him to his latest wedding. It was just before he’d gotten mind numbingly drunk... that same night he'd mistaken the innocent daughter of Ned Stark for an experienced lady of the night.

Tormund was still droning on in that aggravating way that had nearly made Sandor strangle him during that one mission they’d shared searching for a client's son who had been kidnapped in the far North.

“…can’t believe my sweet Tarth is with that sour-faced golden Lannister pansy. She and I were s’posed to have great big babies and that one handed dick…”

“You’re still going on about Tarth even after all these years?" Sandor snapped incredulously.

Brienne Tarth was the only detective in a long line of detectives who had managed to thwart one of his assignments when he'd been entrenched in the Lannisters' service.

After he'd left the Lannisters, Sandor would occassionally accept private jobs between his stunt work and it was on one such assignment that he'd had one mission with Tormund. Brienne had crossed their paths again, this time assisting them with recovering the missing son of one of the prime families in the Riverlands, the Tullys. Tormund had been hankering after the ruthless detective ever since.

“Have you by chance seen her since that mission?" The Wildling knew well enough that sometimes Brienne contacted him for leads. "If you ever do, tell her I said…”

“Thank you, Tormund. Good bye Tormund.”

After he ended the call, Sandor began to dig into one of his bags for the half-filled flask of sour red he always carried but then he remembered that he'd tossed it out after not being able to take another sip without thinking of the trouble he’d gotten into the last time he’d ended up drunk.

 _Trouble never felt so good._ He shut that thought down right away.

Did no good for him to think of that night as anything else other than what it was. 

Instead Sandor pondered the new information he'd discovered about the Mountain and his mission.

 The Lannisters demanded that the Starks be killed off by the beast that was his brother but what made his blood run hot and cold at the same time was what they promised to reward that monster with. Sansa would become a mere spoil of a war he was sure she knew nothing of.

_You treated her no better dog._

Yet there was no question that should Gregor get his claws on her, she would never be able to escape him.

Not like he had.

He thought of all the times he’d run from his brother.

First as a young boy evading Gregor’s monstrous moods and after that, avoiding his taunts after recovering from the flames then fleeing shortly after Eleanor’s death. And then finally fleeing from the Lannister’s service after Gregor had been re-installed as their premier Guard.

Sandor decided the time had come to stop running.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while. Sigh...life. Here's a long chap to make up :)  
> Hope you guys had happy holidays! And please forgive the wild liberties I have taken with this fic :)  
> N.B.: Sensitive topics/triggers in this chapter on abortion

 

Sandor paced impatiently in an out of the way seedy abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Winter Town.

He was a man accustomed to doing many things on his own. As such, he hated that he had to have this meeting. 

_Would that I’d taken myself in hand instead of fucking that night._

A strange sensation welled in his chest at the thought and then he realized it must be guilt he felt. The Stark girl hadn’t asked for this. She was the victim here. And she would become something even worse than a victim if the Lannisters saw their plan through.

He wondered uneasily if even now the Lannisters had already sent Gregor tearing through Winter Town to search for his latest prize. Sandor was well aware of how the Lannisters rewarded their favourite guard. He’d heard the stories from other guards he’d seen through the years, how the Mountain preferred the virginal ones.

Memories he never wanted to think on pummelled him again. He could hear Eleanor’s voice as if she was right here in this drafty warehouse next to him. She’d tenderly held his bandaged cheek, the flesh beneath still raw and enflamed and _hurting_ and whispered, “ _Why is it that he loves to make the purest suffer the most? When will his madness end? Does he think by destroying what is good that he can steal some of that goodness for himself?”_

Even now the hopefulness in Eleanor’s voice made the rage burn hotter within him than the flaming coals ever had.

She’d loved him, his sister. She’d loved them both. Such was her love that she made him vow not to sin himself by killing their brother. Right before she threw herself over that balmy Westerlands cliff.

If only she knew how many times he’d already sinned as she put it, his hands stained with the lives of countless men, countless Lannister enemies whose lives could not replace the one he longed to take the most.

 _Should have rid this world of his madness a long time ago_. Seven heavens knew how many virgins he might have saved.

The Lannisters had no qualms about keeping their favoured beast fed with his choice of prey. They had many enemies, the lions, and the young untouched daughters of these enemies were fodder for the Mountain’s appetites.

Tormund’s grating Northern accent resounded in his head again. _“He has a fresh new bride awaiting him…Word has it that it’s ‘posed to be the Stark’s only daughter.”_

That same chill he’d felt when he first heard that bit of info skittered down his spine again. Guaranteed, he knew first-hand the girl wasn’t a virgin any longer but she still certainly _looked_ the part.

And now it had come to this; he couldn’t continue to turn a blind eye to Gregor’s proclivities any longer, couldn’t pretend anymore that his brother was non-existent.The promise of a new budding life had dissolved any vow made by the grief-stricken lad he’d once been.

Sandor, out of reflex, turned towards the rusty heavy doors.

He heard no sound but some buried instinct that perhaps lingered from the years he’d spent in the Lannister guard communicated to him he was no longer alone on this remote forgotten property.

Mere moments later, the arthritic creaking of the old warehouse doors confirmed his hunch.

Tyrion Lannister waddled into the dim dusty space with his typical uneven gait, squinting up at him through the columns of smudged light that filtered in from the shattered windows.  
Another man, presumably one of his guards, strolled in languidly behind him.

“Hound.”

“Dwarf.”

Tyrion took no ill will from his casually uttered response.  
He supposed that men like him with his disfigured face and men like the Lannister imp with his deformities learnt from early on not to let every slight become a grievance.

The Lannister guard trailing the dwarf slouched in the shadows cast from the light from the windows against the musty walls. Tyrion himself boldly approached him.

“Thought you gave up the life, Clegane. You never did show an interest in the machinations of your former employers before even when you did as they bid like the good dog you once were. Why do my beloved family’s plans interest you now?”

Sandor was well aware of Tyrion’s disdain for his father and sister in particular, the only ones it would seem who could actually wound the thick-skinned dwarf with their words. Their love towards their kin was another thing he and the imp shared in common he knew.

“I’m interested because their plans would harm a friend.”

Tyrion tilted his grotesquely large head at him curiously. “From what I recall, you never did have any friends.”

Sandor watched as Tyrion turned to the guard standing in the shadows. “Bronn’s here told me a pretty interesting story about your new…friend.”

The guard moved closer. With a lightening reflex molded from practice, Sandor grasped the handgun tucked out of sight against his hip, a beauty custom made for his large beastly fingers. He may have given up the life as the dwarf noted but he sure as hell had kept up with his weapons of choice.

The man however, strolled unhurriedly to where they stood with hands relaxed and empty at his sides.

Sandor frowned at his gaunt rakish features. Years of his life being dependent on recognizing if one was ally or foe ensured his razor sharp memory to place faces.  
This Bronn was the guard from that Summer Isle hotel, the same one who had shown him where she was staying with her aunt.

“You again,” Sandor muttered. “How did you go from hotel security to a Lannister guard in a few weeks?”

“I decided to employ Bronn’s services after he got me out of a somewhat sticky situation,” Tyrion said. “As it so happens, I was searching for you Clegane and Bronn here directed me to where you would be.”

“I never told you I was coming to Winterfell.”

Bronn threw him a gap toothed grin. “Well, big chap, I knew that was where the girl was from and you seemed keen on following her so…”

Tyrion was regarding him with mismatched eyes that missed nothing. “So you are involved with Stark’s only daughter.”

“If I am, it’s no business of yours. You said you would give me the info you had.”

“Easy there, Hound. You’ll receive the information you came for. As a matter of fact I am quite relieved at this turn of events. It would make my proposition that much easier for you to accept seeing as you seem to have some affection for Miss Stark.”

“I don’t have any bluidy affection for anyone!”

“Is it me you’re trying to convince or yourself? You’d think that I had accused you of having an affliction rather than affection. It must be difficult for my father’s former hound to find himself fixated on something other than hate.”

Sandor regarded the short man for a few instants, ignoring his smirking guard. The Lannister dwarf always did think himself witty. To his credit Tyrion neither cowered nor flinched from his glare as most were prone to do.

“What do you want me to do?” Sandor gritted between clenched teeth. He knew Tyrion’s willingness to divulge any info would not be for free.

The hint of amusement glinting in the dwarf’s eyes vanished. “My father has made a proposal of a sort to the Starks. Eddard Stark will be granted acquittal with one wave of the mighty Tywin’s hand if he signs over his share in Baratheon industries and acknowledges my dear sister’s spawn as the sole heir.”

Everyone knew that Tywin had the best Westerosi judges in his pocket. Swaying Stark’s verdict to suit his needs would be as easy to the Lannister patriarch as a lion toying with a mouse’s tail.

“He will also request Stark’s daughter be united in marriage to his new head of Westerlands. Your dear brother.”

The thought of Sansa being anywhere near Gregor knowing what he did to his former wives made the nerves he felt anytime he thought of his brother increase tenfold.  
Sandor gruffly cleared his throat. “So what do you propose, imp?”

“I have no wish to see the Mountain as head of the Westerlands. However no one can get through his men to get to him. And even if anyone did get through his men, I doubt they could stand against the Mountain. Except perhaps, one of his own blood.”

Sandor did not allow his surprise to show. He had thought that like the rest of his Lannister clan, Tyrion had revered the Mountain’s services, had coveted that air of intimidation and ominousness that the Mountain used all too well to eradicate their enemies.

He was also very much aware that Tyrion knew of the mutual hate between the Hound and the Mountain.  
Tyrion had been there after all when the confrontation had taken place on his last night as a Lannister guard after Gregor had returned to the lions’ service. It had taken the presence of Tywin himself and a large contingent of guards to prevent what would have been a bloodbath. Whose blood would have spilled he wasn’t certain, except that he might have ended the abomination that was the Mountain then and there that very night if Tywin hadn’t shown up.

Sandor, despite the raging need that had lived within him for all these years, still felt annoyed that the dwarf sought to use the hatred between the Clegane brothers to his advantage.  

“I don’t do hits anymore.”

“So you’d rather the Mountain goes through with his foul plans? You’d see your delicate Winterfell flower crushed in his fists?” Tyrion was the one who was glaring up at him now.

Sandor clenched his hands. “Don’t tell me what she is to me!”

Tyrion sighed. “There’s no time for this theatrics. The Starks, proud lot that they have always been, may very well refuse my father’s offer. But whether Eddard Stark agrees or not, my father will take what he wants anyway through the might of the Mountain and his men.”

“What’s it to you? Why do you want the Mountain out of the picture?”

“Because he took something of mine and destroyed it.”

“What happened? Daddy sent him to drag you back to the Rock after one of your drunken bouts? Are you hiring me to go after the Lannister’s strongest guard because of some petty grievance?”

Tyrion swiveled on him so swiftly that for a moment his squat shadow leapt ahead of him casting a height onto the dusk-washed wall of the old warehouse that the dwarf would never have.

“He raped her! He murdered her!”

As the dwarf’s shout reverberated to the dilapidated rafters overhead, Sandor thought he was speaking of what Gregor had done to Eleanor. His sister. But the dwarf could not know of that. Sandor had told no one else but the little doll. _Sansa_.

“He killed Tysha. He killed my wife.”

The dwarf had turned away now, covering his ill-begotten face, not that he was one to judge.

Unbidden, Tyrion slid his stubby hands from his face and spoke quietly into the silence. “It happened before you came on the Lannisters guard. I was but a boy of sixteen when I met her. When I wed her. Father found out. Even as his reviled little monster, a common waitress was too low for a Lannister...” Tyrion spat his family name as if it were a curse. “I ran away with her but the Mountain found us soon enough. He made me watch while he did it. After, he dragged her away. When his men took me back to the Rock, father told me the Mountain killed her.”

It seemed to Sandor that the horror stories of Gregor’s deeds would never end.

“I didn’t know.”

Tyrion turned to face him again and it seemed as if his eyes, usually alight with some as yet untold joke, had grown wearier. Older.  
“The Mountain’s destruction is of mutual interest to both of us. He’s already scented blood and he’s eager to be on the trail of your Stark girl. We can’t let him have another victim. Bronn here can help you on this…assignment. He has links to the Essos Military Services.”

“I have my own links.” Sandor muttered.

“The more the better. Should you be successful, Clegane Manor will be yours.”

“I don’t want Clegane Manor. I won’t set foot in that place again.”

Tyrion looked as if he wanted to ask a host of questions but then thought better of it. Instead he inclined his head. “As you wish but rest assured you will nonetheless be well compensated for the disruption to your usual work routine and you shall have my eternal gratitude for helping me to settle my debt of vengeance.”

 _Vengeance_.

For so long Sandor had associated vengeance with his long dead sister.

Yet it was not his sister he thought of now.

Sandor glared down at the dwarf. “I’m not doing this for you.”

  
~

  
She shivered from the chill of the steel seeping into her back. Glancing down she realized she was wearing only a paper-thin gown of pale mint, the type they gave you to wear in a hospital and that the steel at her back was none other than a gurney.

The bright light overhead blinded her. She could hear the tinkling of metal against metal and then there was a sudden splash of liquid against her thighs. She gasped when the coldness trickled down against her bare skin.  
Raising her head, she saw Mother looming over her, a manic gleam in her fever-shining eyes.  
“Don’t worry Sansa dear, we’ll fix this, your life won’t be ruined now.”

Mother smiled, the crimson lipstick she used to wear so immaculately when Sansa was a child now smeared on her dry, chapped lips so that her mouth looked like a bleeding wound.

“We’ll kill them all,” Mother whispered. “But first we must kill this baby…”

“No!”

Sansa shot upright clutching her stomach. The bed sheets, her favourite blankets from Winterfell, were in a tangled heap around her where she’d been lying on the narrow bed.

_Just a dream. It was just a dream._

The realization could not make neither the sudden nausea rising in her throat nor the lingering anxiety hovering over her dissipate. She fumbled for the chipped glass of water she had on the little cramped beside table and chugged it down. She forced herself to keep it down, fighting against the insistent reflex to hurl it back up.

The summer heat of the tiny bedroom was almost suffocating. Winter Town, particularly in these poorer areas close to the port, could get almost as stiflingly humid as the Isles during the daylight hours of summer.

Sansa flung off the cherished remnants of her childhood and rose from the narrow creaking bed. She set about getting herself ready for the day ahead.

As she washed up in the tiny bathroom, thankfully empty now, she tried to push the dream, no nightmare, to the back of her mind. With a surge of guilt, she thought about the second thoughts she’d been having for the past few days since she’d last saw him.

It would be so easy.

Just one doctor’s visit and her future would be less complicated. But something in her refused to take that outlet.

She cradled her hand over her lower belly protectively.

The nightmare brought back a memory from another bathroom, her spacious girlhood one back home in Winterfell. She’d just passed her fourteenth birthday. Mother had hosted a group of her best friends from school for an elaborate sleep over party at Winterfell. She’d awoken in the middle of the night after the festivities had died down to use the bathroom but someone else had been in there. Sansa was about to go use the one down the hall when she heard the whispers. It had been one of the girls, a popular older girl of sixteen named Lily, whispering into her phone while the others slept.  
“I had to do it!” the girl had uttered in a hushed voice. “Dad would have disowned me if I didn’t. But it was so horrible….they used these metal-like thingies and it was so cold and that liquid they threw on me barely helped with the pain and ugh, I can’t step foot into the school lab without even thinking about it but thankfully it did not take too long.”

Sansa had not a clue what the girl had been speaking of until Jeyne had explained it to her after she confided what she’d overheard. It was the first time Sansa had learned what an abortion was. She shuddered now as she did then.

The girl Lily had been so flippant about it as she chatted over the phone. The very idea of an abortion had been so surreal to Sansa. Yet she still had to acknowledge the choice it provided; she never would have believed that she would be in a situation to even consider it as an option.

Despite herself, she had been actually considering it. But this latest nightmare (she’d been sleeping extremely badly since she’d been to doctor Daenerys) only confirmed for her what she already knew deep down in her gut.

She couldn’t go through with that.

Maybe she would consider adoption. Stay in the Summer Isles until the baby was born and give it up to one of those highly exclusive adoption agencies whose ads she’d once glimpsed in the Winter Town daily newspaper.  
She felt a twinge of unease at that thought but she had to force herself to be rational about this. If she could give this baby the benefit of two parents who loved each other, who at least _knew_ each other, she would do so. It was the least she could do…

One thing she knew for certain was that she couldn’t burden her family with this situation. Sansa spat the last of the toothpaste into the basin, washing it down and glanced at herself in the small cracked mirror. There were faint shadows beneath her eyes, an ode to her recent restless nights.  
With the small cache of makeup she sparingly used, both to make it last and because she did not like that heavy layered look, she dabbed a bit of concealer under her eyes and brushed her hair until it shone. Despite the weariness tugging at her, she did look well.

For as long as she knew herself, Sansa had always been complimented on her Tully looks, her long, lustrous red hair, porcelain skin and sky blue eyes.

Yet now she thought of how he, Sandor, saw her. As nothing more than a little girl he’d accidently ‘knocked up’. She knew he thought of her as pretty but he’d made it quite clear that she was far from his type.

Something in her wanted to be his type.

She had not forgotten for an instant what exactly had happened that night at the hotel. Flashes of their night, and morning together, still haunted her.

Her memories of the way he’d taken her made her both uncomfortable and self-conscious. But there was also that instinctive curiosity that rose like an electric tingle within her when she remembered his touch, his harsh rasping whispers, and the sound he made at the back of his throat when he moved against her, _inside_ her. The way he made her feel.

Sansa felt heat crowd her cheeks. He’d made her… _come_.

That growing craving to experience that feeling with him again frightened her more than her pregnancy did.

But she _couldn’t_ desire him, she just couldn’t. To him, this was all a mistake. The thought made her want to cry.

The abrupt rapping on the thin wooden door startled her.  
“Sansa, are you in there?” It was Robb.

She bit her lip and blinked furiously at herself in the small mirror. _Get a hold of yourself._

Clearing her throat, she answered him and was glad when her voice did not betray her inner turmoil.

“Mother and I wish to speak to you. Join us in the living room, please.” Robb had adopted the no-nonsense voice Father usually used when he had to discipline Rickon or Robb himself.  
Sansa’s heart sank.

Could they have possibly found out that she was pregnant?

It was with no small amount of trepidation that she emerged into the tiny area that passed as a living room in this house that could never replace the old home she’d once known.

Mother was already seated on the overstuffed single chair and Sansa, despite her anxiousness, was relieved to see that mother’s hair was freshly brushed and she even appeared calm rather than the frenetic fidgeting she normally did.

Robb urged her to have a seat on the patched up sofa. Feeling as if she were tip toeing across hot coals, Sansa sank down into the indicated seat.

Bran and Rickon were at school and she knew Robb would have to pick them up soon. She would use that window of opportunity to make a call then. But for now she was concerned with the grave expression on her brother’s face. She could not even meet Mother’s gaze. Sansa stared down at her hands, willing them not to shake.

She gulped silently when Mother moved to sit beside her. When Sansa met her eyes, she was surprised to see that for this moment at least, Mother looked like the strong, capable woman Sansa once knew. She should have been reassured but there was a look of determination in her gaze that reminded her of this morning’s nightmare.

Sansa winced as Mother took her hands in hers. “My dear daughter, I am so sorry for what I must ask of you.”

“What do you mean, Mother?” Sansa could barely speak. _She knows. She wants me to get rid of it_.

Robb began pacing before them, his jaw clicking. “We can’t ask this of her, Mother! She’s innocent of all this! Surely you know this is just a trap.”

Mother shook her head at Robb. “We are too weak now to fight the lions. We must! It’s the only way.”

Robb spun to face Mother. “This is not like the old times. She has a bright future ahead of her despite our ruin. You can’t mean to accept this deal, selling her off like some damned pawn. I don’t trust the Lannisters. Neither should you.”

“This is not about trusting them, Robb. Whether we like it or not, we are part of their game now and we must play along until we have the support to maneuver our way out of this. We are not ready to take on the Lannisters yet. We must fool them into thinking they have won!”

Sansa glanced from her agitated brother to Mother’s newfound calm. “What is going on?”

Mother turned to her once again, squeezing her damp hands in her dry ones. “Sansa dear, we have been offered a deal in exchange for your father’s freedom. Tywin Lannister insists that Ned must sign over his share of assets in their previous joint venture and acknowledge Robert’s son by Cersei Lannister as the true heir of Baratheon Industries. They will then absolve him of the charges that he murdered Robert and assure his acquittal.”

“Will Father do that?”

Mother sighed. “I do not know. But we must do all in our power to convince him. Or he won’t leave the Black Cells alive of that I am certain.”

“Tell her the rest, Mother.” Robb seethed.

Mother squeezed her eyes shut for a brief instant.

“Please Mother what is it? What more do they want?” Sansa hated seeing Mother in such distress. Yet she felt immense relief that at this very moment was the closest Mother had been to her usual self before Father had been taken away.

“Sansa, part of the deal is that you must marry the Lannisters’ new head of the Westerlands. No one knows who has been appointed the position yet. The Lannisters are keeping that information confidential. But they insist you must marry him.”

She slid her hands from Mother’s grasp. “I can’t!”

Even Robb appeared surprised at her outburst and Mother looked as if she would cry.

Sansa started to stutter her excuses about college and then Robb was reassuring her again that he won’t have her sold off as some brood mare.  
Mother glanced sharply at Robb, cutting him off. “The head of Westerlands will be one of the most powerful men in Westeros. As much as we don’t like these conditions, you have a duty to your family now, Sansa.”

Despite Mother’s formidable insistence, there was no harshness in her tone only pure sadness and Sansa felt even worse when Mother apologized again.  
“I am so sorry we must ask this of you.”

Robb grumbled angrily again and Sansa was downright distraught.   
Here she was pregnant for a stranger and her family was being urged to marry her off to another stranger to secure Father’s freedom. What a mess! She thought.

Mother was grabbing at her hand again and Sansa did not have it in her heart to elude her grasp. “Sansa, please, I know how difficult this is. You do not know who this man is, none of us do but don’t you see? It’s the only way for us to move on from our circumstances now. I did my duty when I was younger, I married your father even if I barely knew him…”

“That was still in the time of arranged marriages Mother, that was different.” Robb said.

“Robb stop this!” Mother hissed. Sansa could see the new purpose in her eyes. It was almost worse than her previous catatonic state.

“You can’t seriously be contemplating taking this so called deal, Mother!” Robb shouted. “Father will never agree to this!”

“When I speak to him, he will see there’s no other way.” Mother said quietly. She stood up now moving to Robb. Again Sansa saw a flash of the Mother she remembered before Father’s imprisonment. There was that determined look in Catelyn Stark’s eyes, the look that was the prelude to getting things done.

Mother squeezed Robb’s shoulders. “We must go along with the Lannister’s deal and strike back when the time is right. We must fool them into thinking that they have defeated us to preserve our family. We simply can’t fight back the might of the lions yet not when we are still this weak. Take the deal and then we have the chance to build back what we lost. Our Northern allies will support us. With Sansa marrying the new head of the Westerlands, whoever he might be, he could also be persuaded to join our cause...”

Sansa could see that Robb was actually considering Mother’s words now. She had been depending on Robb to help her thwart this deal to marry her off. She couldn’t let them do this, couldn’t get married to one man while she carried another’s child. She could not live through that level of deception and she had no wish to be tied to another stranger.

Yet no protestations escaped her lips, she just sat there numb as she thought of fleeing back to the Summer Isles and making a life for herself.  
_But then you would leave Father to rot in the Black Cells if you run away…_

Sansa barely responded when Mother pecked her on the cheek, whispering reassurances before being whisked away by Old Nan so that she could help ready her to visit Father.

She barely heard Robb whispering to her as he patted her on her shoulder. He was saying something about how he would try his best to avert that deal but Sansa knew her brother was already more than halfway lured by Mother’s plan. Robb told her that they would speak to Father and then within a few minutes they were off leaving Sansa sitting there alone and in shock.

Finally, she stood up and went to the small bedroom she shared with her little brothers. There she slipped out the old phone from beneath her hand-embroidered Princess pillowcase, another remnant of her Winterfell childhood. Those days were long past.  
Taking a deep breath, she dialled the number he’d given her.

He answered on the second ring.

She released a shaky breath. “Sandor?”

“Little Doll, what’s wrong?” It was uncanny the way he sensed her distress but then she wasn’t doing much of a good job at hiding it.

“I…nothing. I just need to talk to you.”

“I’m almost there. Was already on my way.”

“How…”

“You’re in danger.”

His rasping voice broke for a second.  
“What do you mean? You won’t hurt me, Sandor.”

“Not from me this time, little doll. I’ll explain better when I get there.”

Sansa stared at the phone for a moment after he clicked off. _Not from me this time_. He still believed that he had hurt her that night.

With a sigh of relief, she saw Robb and Mother off as they left to visit Father.

Then making sure that Old Nan was occupied, she moved to the relative privacy of the porch. Not a few minutes had passed before he had driven up to the front of the house. He truly had been already on his way to her.

His dark eyes immediately alighted on her, roving over her for a second or two and Sansa was glad that she’d taken extra care with her appearance this morning. He unfolded himself from the car and she was struck once again at just how huge he was.

She carefully made her way down the rickety wooden steps to meet him at the gate. There was an expression of worry that looked out of place on his scarred, rugged features.  
“I need to discuss something with you. Is there someplace where we can go and talk?”

For the second time that morning as she tilted her chin up to meet his gaze, Sansa’s heart sank. In spite of her previous contemplation on other…options, she hadn’t realized how much she wanted this man to be there when the baby came until now. Was he going to tell her he was leaving? Going away and that he wanted nothing to do with the baby?

To her horror, Sansa blurted out her fear. “You…you don’t want to see this through, do you? I-I can’t do this alone, Sandor. I thought I could but I can’t.”

He sighed heavily. “Little Doll. Listen to me, I need you to leave here with me.”

“What do you mean? Now?"

There was a sudden cacophony of screeching tires. Sandor’s eyes widened his hand going to his hip as he moved in front of her as if demons from hell had pulled up before them.

But to Sansa the reality was worse than that.

Robb had pulled up to a stop behind Sandor’s car. 

A surge of static exploded in her throat as she watched Robb leap out from the old secondhand vehicle.

"Robb what are you doing back here so soon!"

Her brother's focus was on Sandor though he answered her. "Mother decided to take the train. She wanted me to pick up the boys first as school's been let out early. Passed along the main road and saw a strange car in front the house. Had to see what was going on here."

Inexperienced as she was with weaponry, Sansa noticed both men’s hands darting to their pockets, she could even see the hilt of Sandor’s gun at his waist as he grasped it with a large steady hand.

“No, stop it, please!” Sansa ran out of the gate to stand between her brother and Sandor.

Robb’s face was flushed and teeming with anger.  
“You're the Hound! What are _you_ doing here? The Lannisters sent you, didn’t they? Making sure we take their damned deal!”

“This Lannister dog fled its cage a while now.”

“Sansa get away from him!” Robb made no effort to hide the gun he was grasping at his hip.

“Both of you, put those things away! Robb, Sandor is here to see me.”

Her brother's gaze darted to her in surprise “You know the Hound?”

Silence trickled tensely between them for a moment.

“Yeah, she knows me.” Sandor's rasp cracked the sudden quiet.

She could feel his gaze on her. For a heart-stopping second, she thought he was going to reveal her condition to Robb.  
Before he could say more, Sansa blurted. “We’re seeing each other!”

Robb turned to stare at her in disbelief. “How? When? Do you know who he is? What he is? He worked for the Lannisters, the people responsible for putting Father in the Black Cells. He’s brother to the monster who almost killed Father in those cells.”

“I’m not my brother.” Sandor muttered.

“Is that what you tell yourself when you killed in the Lannister’s name? I want you to stay away from Sansa.”

“Would that I could!”

She flinched to hear that. His gruff words were like a sharp slap. He truly did want nothing to do with her. She knew she should have expected as much but it hurt all the same. To her annoyance, she felt her eyes sting.

“Leave Hound. Leave now. You’re upsetting my sister.”

She could feel _his_ eyes on her again and she just wanted to disappear into the sidewalk.

“Sansa…” he took a step towards her but then Robb moved to stand in front of her.

"I said leave."

Sandor glared down at her brother. “You really don’t have a clue do you?”

“Sandor, please. Not here. Not now.”

He must have seen the plea in her eyes for Sandor grew quiet and turned away.  
Robb’s keen eyes darted between them. “Sansa I don’t know what’s going on here but he needs to leave. Mother and Father will most likely take the deal. And whatever you think you have with this...man… cannot continue.”

An unexpected surge of anger coursed through her. “And what if I refuse? You can’t force me to do this!” She hated having to bring this up in front of _him._

“Sansa let me talk to him.” Sandor said quietly. 

“Stay out of this Hound,” Robb sneered. “Our family affairs have nothing to do with you.”

“Unfortunately it does,” Sandor rasped.

“I know about the deal the Lannisters offered you.”

Robb tensed. “Good gods, it’s you isn’t it? They’ve appointed their old dog as the new head of Westerlands.”

“Worse.” Sandor stated ominously.

Robb’s face paled. “The Mountain.”

“You catch on fast.” Sandor snarled.

“Sansa go inside.” Robb said. “It seems the Hound and I shall be having a talk after all.”

“This concerns me and I’m not going anywhere.” She found a fount of courage and moved to stand beside Sandor. “Whatever you and my boyfriend have to talk about, you can talk about in front of me.”

Robb wrinkled his nose in distaste and Sandor was stiff as a board beside her but Sansa forced a bright smile to her face.  
Robb glared at Sandor. “From what I heard of you, you never did do girlfriends, dog. The Lannisters must have sent you after my sister. To pave the way for your brother…”

Robb never finished for Sandor moved towards him with a swiftness that robbed Sansa of breath. He collared Robb until his feet dangled from the sidewalk.

“If you knew anything about me you’d know that I’d rather burn all over again before I did anything to help the Mountain.”

“You’re a killer, just like him!”

"And you’re such an honourable one aren't you Stark, after al you only killed to defend your family rather than being hired to kill."

“Sandor, put him down!” Sansa whispered furiously. And what did he mean about Robb killing?

Sandor glanced at her over his shoulder then shoved Robb away. “I’ve got no time for your judgments, wolfpup. I don’t give a sodding fuck what you believe but the Mountain is moving on your family’s trail and he won’t stop until he crushes all of you. Well most of you anyway. He won’t kill her. Not right away at least. He’ll take her and…” Sandor stopped his rant abruptly, turning away.

She saw that flash of guilt in his eyes again before he averted his gaze. Was he thinking that he wasn’t any better than his brother given what had happened between them?

When Sandor turned to her again all hint of guilt had been wiped clean from his face. His expression was stoic again even if his dark eyes still flickered with the constant rage he could not hide. His ferocious glares seemed more fearsome to her than his scars.

She swallowed nervously when he directed that glare at her but resolutely told herself she was not afraid of him. Not when she’d witnessed how terrified he’d been when they learned of her pregnancy, he’d been even more terrified than she had been. And she was especially not afraid of him since he’d revealed a glimpse of the lost boy he’d been, the one who’d felt guilty for being unable to save his sister.

 _He was the same blood as me._ That’s what he’d said about the monster who had raped his sister, wasn’t it? She knew then that it was their own brother who did that. The same brother, the Mountain they called him who from what she could tell was the one who had been appointed as the new Westerlands leader by the Lannisters. That’s who they wanted to marry her off to.

Something in her whispered that it should have been Sandor appointed as the head of the Westerlands territory. Everything might have fit into place then. _Except he doesn’t want to be married_. He’d made that quite clear when he blatantly told her that he only associated with ladies of the night.

Sandor never took his eyes off her even as he spoke to Robb. “She needs to leave this place. You all do. Before the Mountain and his men finds you.”

“How do I know you haven’t already led them here? That this is not some farce hatched by you and your brother and the Lannisters to snatch my sister from under our noses?”

“If I wanted to steal her, she’d be long gone, boy, have no doubt about that. The Lannisters want what’s left of your assets. Do you think this deal will give them that? That’s your true trap there. Get you to accept and then slaughter you. They’ll make a public show of reconciliation with you Starks and then they’d set the Mountain loose on you. Your father, your mother, you and your brothers are just mere meat to be discarded. They’ll give your sister to my brother, they’ll use her as the precious key to Winterfell and then toss her aside when they’ve secured your old territory.”

“I don’t need you to spell this out for me, Hound.” Robb seethed. “We’ll handle our own affairs. The only thing I’ll ask of you is to stay away from my sister. We don’t need your help.”

Rob gripped Sansa by her arm and practically dragged her through the gate.

“Robb, stop!”

Sandor growled beneath his breath but she heard it all the same. He made to move towards them but Sansa stopped him with a look. She tugged at her brother’s hold. “I need to speak to him, to hear him out at least, Robb. Whatever you know of him, he won’t hurt me.”

But oh, the way he was staring at her now! It was a look of wild untamed ferocity. He glared when Robb tightened his hand on her arm.

“Robb, you need to let me go.” Sansa whispered.

Robb looked at her then at Sandor. He reluctantly released her.

She felt a little tension leave her shoulders when Sandor removed his hand from the hilt of his gun.

“Fuck it I’m going to regret this offer but since you want to be proactive about this, join me in the hunt for the Mountain. Knock him down first before he could knock down your door.”

“Are you saying that you’re going to get rid of your own brother?” Robb asked in disbelief.

Sansa at once felt a surge of sympathy for Sandor. She knew the story of what his brother had done to his sister, she could still hear his choked voice telling her how his sister, Eleanor her name was, had chosen to die rather than live with what the Mountain did to her.

“Should have done it a long time ago.” Sandor muttered.

Robb pointed an accusing finger at him.  
“Is this the sort of man you want to associate with Sansa? Do you hear him? He’d kill his own brother, never mind how vile he is. He can bring you nothing but trouble.”

Sandor laughed. His rough bark of laughter held no mirth. “Is it a family trait with you Starks to only recognize trouble after it’s already hit you in the face?”

“What exactly are you saying?” Robb demanded.

“I’m saying that your pretty sister and I...”

“Sandor, please!” Sansa subtly yet frantically shook her head at him.  
He gave a gruff sigh, rifling long fingers through his hair and inadvertently revealing more of the scars that had claimed half of his face. Robb was watching him with a look of pure disgust that strangely made annoyance bloom within her chest.

Unheeding of Robb’s unrelenting grip over his gun, Sandor strode up to loom over him.  
“If you accept the Lannisters’ deal rather than help me bring him down, know that I will take her somewhere where you’ll never be able to find her. Where he won’t be able to get to her.”

“Do you think I’d hand over my sister on a platter to a monster such as your brother. Or _you_?”

Sandor flinched. “You were willing to hand her over to a stranger, not even knowing who the new head of Westerlands was.”

“And I suppose she knows you a whole lot better?”

“Aye, she knows me. Shall I tell you how much? Here’s a bit of advice, boy. Maybe you and your goddamned family shouldn’t have allowed such an innocent girl to go to the Summer Isles in the first place.”

Sansa couldn’t let this continue. Whether he meant to or not, Sandor would let something slip about their situation. She couldn’t let Robb know of her pregnancy, not Mother, not Father…not when she was still so unsure as to the path she would take.

She rushed towards Sandor moving to stand beside him and letting her arm slip through his. “Fighting like this is not helping anything.”

Robb looked away when she slipped her hand into Sandor’s. “Sansa, you’re not serious are you? You’re not dating him?”

“This is not the point right now, Robb.” She tried not to focus on how warm his hand felt, or the sensation of his calluses on her soft palm or how her hand was practically drowning in his.  
He was staring down at her now and Sansa found herself shy. She made herself meet his gaze.

“Do I bluidy have to force this as well, girl? I’m not going to ask you twice. Will you leave with me?”  
Sandor glared down at her as if she was the sole object of his rage.  
She was taken back again by his gruffness but then she saw that hint of worry in his eyes he tried so hard to disguise.

“I can take you somewhere safe.” He rasped turning fully to face her now. “Somewhere where the Lannisters or the Mountain won’t find you until we’ve dealt with this. I won’t let them hurt you. I’d kill them first.”

Leaning down to her ear, he whispered so that only she could hear. “And I won’t tell anyone about…you know. At least not until you’re ready to.”

His hot breath tickled her ear. Sansa shivered, a tingle sparking in her lower belly.

“If she’s going anywhere it’s with her family, Hound.” Robb snapped.

Yet Sansa was immune at this moment to her brother’s irritation.

Sandor’s gaze held her in a grip she wasn’t sure she wanted to be released from. But she still did not know him very well despite their pretence, despite the intimate way they’d held hands in front of her seething brother.

Despite being pregnant with his baby.

It was then she realized with no small amount of shame that they were all three standing out here practically airing their laundry in public. 

She drew herself up to her full height. She may not be able to look him in the eye but she could do so with Robb. “We need to discuss all of this rationally and this is certainly not the place to do it.”

“You don’t have time, girl, for your courtesies.” Sandor growled, his almost tenderness of a moment ago fully faded now. “You think my brother’s going to wait around for an invitation, all polite if you please, to come knocking down your door? Let me get you away from this.”

She could see that Sandor was bent on chasing down his brother in perhaps as much she was determined that she wouldn’t abandon her family in their worst time of danger.

She didn’t know under what circumstances she would endure where his hunt for his brother was concerned. He would be out for blood. And she would just be in his way. Just another burden.  
On the other hand, she knew her family, she trusted them. And now that they knew who exactly the Lannisters had appointed as the new head of Westerlands, she was certain that Father would never accept the Lannister’s conditions.

A steady calm washed over her, drowning out the flurry of nerves that had been dancing in her stomach. She couldn’t let these circumstances overwhelm her. She had to think in the best interest of the child she now carried.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, taking a step towards Robb. “I can’t leave with you.”

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while since I've updated this story but it's always been there simmering at the back of my mind. Hope you enjoy!

_“I can’t leave with you.”_

The words had a much bigger impact on him than he liked.

Her rejection stung.

And he hated that this girl-woman had this effect on him, he who was the ultimate loner, who never went out on a limb for anyone.

The way she’d sidled to her self-righteous brother had stuck a chord of something he hadn’t felt before.

Envy.

The little doll had her family. Her own pack. And as Sandor watched her stand with her brother, for the first time since he’d left the cold haunting Clegane manor, he didn’t feel the usual comfort in being a lone dog.

And damn her, he couldn’t just walk away, not after the decision she’d made. But maybe he could do what he could from afar, get on his monster of a brother’s trail before he could get to her.

_So long as I breathe, he won’t harm another. Especially not her._

Despite the surge of protectiveness, he couldn’t stand the sight of the caution in her eyes as he glared at her standing next to the sneering Stark twat of her brother. Her scent was still a shroud around him, she was still within touching distance. He could just take her in his arms and leave...

Sandor cursed.

He had to get away from her before he gave into the stupid impulse beating at him.

And so he left.

He stormed away from her and the sneering Robb Stark before he did something that would make the little doll look at him in true fear. As he drove away, he told himself it was better this way. He could put his full focus on removing the threat to her and ridding the Lannisters of their strongest guard. _That’s long overdue._

He found himself craving his preferred sour red. This time, the memories of what had happened the last time he’d gotten drunk did not drown his impulse to drink.

.

_Sansa_

The small Wintertown house was in an upheaval, clothes everywhere as the Starks packed for the trip to the Riverlands. They would leave at first light.

As she brushed the haphazard curls of a fussing Rickon, Sansa told herself she had made the right decision to stick with her family. But the image of Sandor storming off would not leave her mind.

The man carried rage like her fairy-tale protagonists of olden times carried swords. But earlier he’d been even angrier than usual.

_Because I refused to leave with him._

The way that Robb and Mother had reacted to the news that the Mountain was the mysterious new head of the Westerlands left Sansa in no doubt that everything Sandor said about his brother was true.

And Sandor wanted to keep her away from that.

It was something one of her gallant knights in her secret stories would do. _He’d laugh in my face to hear such a thought._

He was such a sullen man, so angry just like those aggressive bulls in the Winterfell meadows.

But she’d never had the urge to pet them.

And in a sudden burst of remembrance, she thought he reminded her of a lost friend, someone she’d almost forgotten.

The milkman’s daughter she’d befriended as a child in Winterfell. He certainly won't find it so amusing to be compared to a girl, she thought. The very idea was ludicrous but there was something there...

She’d first thought of the girl as a wild heathen, rambunctious and disobedient, anathema to the prim manners Sansa had always prided herself on.

Until the girl had helped her up from a terrible tumble in the woods chasing after Robb in one of their childish games.

After that she’d made it her duty to be more friendly towards the girl and had discovered that where she had been coddled in the affection of her parents, her new friend had been starved of it. And as such, she lashed out at others around her.

Despite his gruff ways, Sansa believed that this Sandor Clegane had much more good of a heart than even he believed himself to have. For one, he’d made sure to seek her out after their fateful encounter when he could have so easily gone about his way...

Rickon tugged away from her hand, effectively tugging her out of her reverie.

“I don’t want you to go to the Riverlands!” he shouted as he squirmed against Sansa’s attempts to finish brushing his hair.

“It’ll only be for a short while Rickon, you’ll see.”

“Then why can’t Bran and I go too? Don’t wanna go with Nan, wanna stay with you and mum!” Rickon stared up at her mournfully with soulful puppy eyes and Sansa swallowed against the sudden lump burning in her throat.

She hated that the younger boys would be going far North to stay with the Reeds, Father’s trusted friends but she knew it was for the best. They would be safer there. Old Nan would be accompanying them and Uncle Benjen would journey with them to the Reeds’ home in the obscure swamps.

A place where Father’s enemies wouldn’t be able to get to them.

Yet when it was time to say goodbye to her brothers, she couldn’t hold back her tears.

Rickon held onto her as if he would never let go.

She inhaled the scent of his hair. Even though she’d freshly washed it, her baby brother’s hair still held a hint of the woods at Winterfell where he used to run off to so often. Would he ever roam their beloved wood again? Would they ever return to Winterfell?

“Don’t go getting lost in the swamps, okay? Be on your best behaviour for Father’s friends.” Her voice cracked and she couldn’t speak again for a bit.

“But I don’t wanna go!” Rickon’s sobs were muffled against her shoulder and he clung to her even tighter until Robb gently pulled him away.

Bran squeezed her shoulder, his eyes as he looked at her wiser than his years.

“Don’t worry, Sansa.” He said in his quiet, grave voice. She rose to her feet and hugged him tightly, trying in vain to blink away the sting in her eyes.

Mother stood with Old Nan by the rattling wood door, her face expressionless as she watched Robb try to cheer up Rickon with his usual rough play. Sansa envied Mother’s staid composure as she frantically swiped at her eyes.

_Why am I being so teary anyway? We’ll all be together again soon._

And all too soon Uncle Benjen arrived to collect the boys and Old Nan.

Her nursemaid, whom she had known from ever since she could remember, took her hands in her thin skinned ones and bid her to cheer up. Sansa thought of the budding secret inside her and wondered then if the tradition with Nana as the Stark’s babies’ nurse would continue when her baby was born.

_I won’t be able to keep this a secret for long._

She could only hope that this situation with the Lannisters would tide over soon, that Father would be released from the Black Cells.

And then she would be free to focus on the budding life inside her. Free to make her own choices...

.

 

_Sandor_

 

Several hours, and several bottles of sour red later, he found himself back by the little house.

The night had an extra layer of darkness sliced only by a sliver of the moon’s shy smile.

The wine swirled in his head but didn’t diminish the instinctive stealth he’d mastered in the prime of his guard days. He opened the creaky gate with barely a sound.

Despite his inebriation, it would be an easy thing to get in there. He’d deal with the blustering Stark wolf if he interfered and none of the rest of them would dare get in his way.

The Starks.

Her family.

For a moment the tight knot of liquor-fuelled frustration softened within him.

He’d never known what that was like. That sense of a family that stuck together. Everyone had always left in the end. Everyone except Gregor who slavered for the chase.

Sandor had never chased anyone.

Until now.

He thought of the wary way she’d watched him earlier as she stood next to the Stark heir.

The lass was rightfully cautious, cautious of him like all the rest and he couldn’t blame her. She did not really know him. And he hadn’t exactly been kind to her. Not gallant like those old-fashioned knights she bluidy fantasized about.

And she had extra cause to fear him more than anyone else ever had considering what he had done to her that night in the Summer Isles.

She hadn’t been a willing whore. Instead she was the very thing he was deathly afraid of. An innocent girl at his mercy, the type of girl he’d vowed to stay far away from. What would Sansa Stark say if she knew he was the one who was afraid of her? Afraid of her purity, disgusted with himself that he’d ruined it, ruined her.

The Hound became a rabid beast anytime fear threatened. But this time the anger was directed at himself.

He hated that he still wanted to take her all over again.

In his more sober, mellow moods he liked to tell himself he was a better beast than the Mountain. At the very least, he did not ruin innocent girls for the kick of it. But the liquor always revealed the truth he tried to suppress.

He was no better than Gregor.

Same blood.

The sour red burned his chest and clarity rose within him like tendrils of smoke. He stepped back away from the porch, his intent to walk away, to leave her to the family she should by all rights trust, to do what he could do to keep her safe from a distance. As he was going to do in the first place.

But before he could go, the door swung open and she stepped out onto the porch.

Her hair gleamed in the dim glow trickling from the little moonlight.

“You came back.”

Why did she have to sound so happy about that? Her hopeful tone grated on him, reminded him of the honeyed, hollow flattery whispered by ladies of the night to disguise their true fear.

But she was no lady of the night.

_Leave now dog before you do something even more foolish._

“You shouldn’t be out here.” She regarded him steadily with shining eyes, the blue in them succumbing to the night the same way the day sky did.

“If I were in my home, my true home in Winterfell, I’d invite you to come inside. But this,” she gestured at the board house behind her. “this is just a shell and I’m ashamed.”

For a moment she looked as shocked as he felt. As if she hadn’t expected to speak so boldly.

“No matter her den, a sheltered wolf has no business welcoming a wild dog into her haven. If you had any sense at all you’d chase me off like the stray I am.”

“Isn’t it a little too late for all that? You haven’t hurt me. You did not hurt me that night.”

Her insistence on this, her bluidy ignorance, made the blood rush faster in his veins, a harmonious current in tide with his growing fury.

He strode to her.

He pulled her to him, pinning her against his chest. “And you think you’re safe now? I would do it all over again whether you wanted me or not. I could take you right now, take you away with me and to fuck with the Starks, the Lannisters and their Mountain! I’d take you and use you again and again, in every way a man can use a woman and there’d be no one to keep you from me, no pack to return to. You’d have no choice but to stay with me!”

_Now I’ve done it. She’ll run as she should, go inside the little house and I won’t follow her. I won’t._

His heart thudded harder when she reached for his face.

Her hand was gentle this time, not the stinging slap from before.

This was worse.

The touch of her fingers were soft as silk against the coarseness of his cratered cheek.

He shuddered.

She caressed his scars and it hurt.

It hurt that a beast of a dog like he would never deserve the gentle touches of this little wolf beauty.

“I am already tied to you Sandor. Nothing can change that. Not because I have no choice but because I choose to be. You cannot frighten me.”

He tried to cling to his rage, the rage he could always depend on to drown any need to feel more, but her determined gaze was a tide he could not fight. He found himself helpless as she held his gaze. The wave of anger receded slowly.

_She’s really not afraid of me. When did that happen?_

Despite the way he’d ruined her, she was still so damn pure in everything she did and said. So naïve. And he wanted her with a new intensity that left him afraid.

This time, for this moment at least, his constant companion to fear, his fury, was absent.

“I need to be with my family now. But when this is over...”

Her soft voice trailed off, a downy scarf dragging against his senses, teasing him with its promise of pleasure before being pulled away.

He tightened his grip on her, feeling the curves of her waist, the sculpt of her very bones beneath his fingers.

“Don’t. Don’t bait me, little doll.”

“I-I’m not sure what you mean but I need to be with my family...”

The plea in her voice splintered the final haze of liquor in him.

He released her from his harsh grip, staggering away from her.

“You made the right choice. Your pack will keep you safe.” I _will keep you safe but not if you’re with me_.

He made to leave but then she uttered something he would never have expected.

“Please don’t leave me. Don’t leave for good,” she whispered.

He stilled, his hand on the shaky latch of the gate. Or maybe it was his own hand that trembled.

All his life Sandor was accustomed to people leaving. He himself had adopted the habit of leaving.

Always fleeing.

He had to look back at her then.

Had to desperately search for the lie in her eyes even if he didn’t recognize any in her tremulous voice, for she must surely be tricking him or worse, teasing him. He hadn’t been named the Hound for nothing. He would scent the lie.

But there was no hint of mockery in her steady gaze.

In her eyes contained the truth, a plea that made his chest twist.

 _No one_ had ever asked him to stay.

No one had ever wanted him to.

And he knew then that the love she had for her family was the only thing preventing her from leaving this place with him.

He envied them her love.

“I won’t leave you to do this alone, Little Doll. All you need do is call me. I’ll be close.” 

 

...

 

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little time jump because, well, I couldn't resist ;) A Sandor ramble bridge of a chapter. Thank you so much for reviewing and reading!

_One Month later_

“Please, please put your hands on me…”

She squirmed and twisted beneath him, such a soft skinned girl wreaking destruction over his hard, harsh body with the lightest touch of her fingers.

Much too fast, she’d destroyed whatever good intentions he was capable of. She had destroyed his will not to touch her, not to ruin her any more than he already had.

With a groan of longing, he buried his face against her. She smelled of lemons and cinnamon.

“Don’t beg me, girl…” he rasped against the swell of her breast.  
Stifling his need to fuck her hard, fast, now, he trailed hot kisses down the curve of her breast. Shaking his head in sustained wonder, always he would wonder why she would want him, he suckled greedily. He growled against her skin, already reddening from his mouth, when he felt her fingers tugging at his hair.

“Oh, gods, yes….please…”

The slick dampness of her flesh rubbed against him where she’d clasped him at his hips with her legs.  
Just one taste, he’d told himself that first time she’d let him kiss her. And he couldn’t get enough.  
She was so wet that he could scent her readiness for him, could feel the heat of her against his flesh and he wanted to do what he had been longing to do for the past few days she hadn’t managed to escape her ever watchful pack.  
So he slid down her supple body that as yet mostly showed no sign of his seed, and grasped her thighs, placing her legs over his shoulders. He bit at the tender flesh on her inner thigh, silky skin so warm she felt almost feverish. He relished her gasp. It was a tender bite but still he soothed her pinkening skin with an open mouthed kiss. Then he gently spread her slippery folds apart with his thumbs and licked a path through her damp curls.

She jolted against him in much the same way she had the first time he’d tasted her there.  
“W-what are you doing…” she’d asked, breathless, that first time he licked her lower lips.

He hadn’t answer her.

He couldn’t have answered her.

But she hadn’t stopped him then. Just as she wouldn’t stop him now.  
It had been a learning experience for both of them. One they had repeated again and again.

“Damn me,” he swore at himself for not doing this sooner, a mindless whisper against her wetness. He licked at her again, his tongue swiping across the pearled bud hidden in her folds. She rolled her hips up to his searching mouth and her moan was a long drawn out verse of want. He felt himself harden even more at the sound.

He couldn’t resist raising his face from her to look at her own beautiful face. For an instant as she met his gaze, he silently questioned yet again how she could not be horrified by him. How could she not be repulsed at seeing his scarred ugly mug between her perfect thighs?  
Yet she shifted her hips against his shoulders as if to draw him back to her, little hands caressing his hair.

“Say my name again, Sansa.” He could beg her for that, to hear her sing his name but despite the plea within him, his voice came out harsh, a gruff command.

He heard her breath hitch. He just had to reach up and caress her heaving breasts, already fuller and rounder even as her stomach remained flat still. Her heart thundered beneath his palm where he cupped the underside of her breast. He saw the flare of excitement in her eyes.

“Sandor, please don’t stop…”  
With a growl of pleasure, he dipped his head to her again, letting his tongue pass across her taut little bud. Then he did it again, his snarl of pleasure muffled against her damp heat.

“Oh, Sandor…”

Bluidy fuck but the way she moaned his name!

For all the times before when he’d been pleased to hear her call him by his name, it was nothing compared to the pleasure he felt when they were together like this. Hearing her sing it was a hundred times sweeter.

And then as her sated whimpers died away, her relentless curiosity, her damnable need to explore his huge scarred body, came alive with a vengeance.  
He, who had never once felt a speck of shame or shyness to slake his sexual appetite with paid ladies of the night, felt the heat rise to his harsh face as she slowly moved to sit astride him.

Even after the past few weeks, it still hurt to look at her.  
She seemed so surreal, as if she would disappear, a stunning spectre from a fevered dream. Even with her hair tossed wildly around her shoulders, bedroom hair, and her blue eyes bright with desire, there was a startling innocence to her that almost made him grasp her and lay her down safely away from him.

Almost.

But he’d lost that battle within that same week he had followed her to the Riverlands.

Eager as an untried lad, he groaned deep in his throat when looking unflinchingly into his eyes, she wrapped her soft fingers around him with both hands, and rising onto her knees planted on either side of his hips, she ever so slowly lowered herself down on him until he felt the light downy hair on her mound kiss his taut skin.

Never looking away from his face, she began the dance between them, a teasing, gentle rhythm and he finished it, losing himself as he always did within her.

Afterwards, she lay against his chest as if the scarred expanse was the most comfortable pillow in the world. 

He could still taste her pleasure.

She fell asleep in his arms.

Looking at her contented face through half lidded eyes, Sandor was reminded that she was truly of the old aristocratic high born ‘blue blooded’ scions. These encounters of theirs starting with that night in the summer Isles would have never happened in a million years if she hadn’t been down on her luck and been torn from her old family estate in Winterfell.

He’d knocked up the bluidy equivalent of a modern-day princess and if these were earlier times, perhaps he’d be beheaded for it.

If the Stark brother could see us now. No doubt, her older brother would have him killed in other ways…or at the very least he would try.

That first night he’d arrived in the Riverlands, he had to call her, feeling a rush of something he would vehemently deny was joy at how happy she’d sounded to hear from him.

Like a lovesick pup, he’d met her the next day when she could get away from the Tully estate. From that first day they’d seen each other again in the month since they’d been in the Riverlands, he’d sensed something different about her.

Physically, she still showed no sign of the baby. His baby. He could still hardly believe that.  
She was still as slender as a stalk and just as fragile looking. But there was nothing weak about the way she’d looked at him as he strode towards her in that out of the way café in the little town bordering the Tully lands.  
She’d looked at him in much the same way he felt when he thought of her, when he remembered the flashes of their first night in the Summer Isles.

Hungry.

The way a woman looks at a man when she wants him. Sandor had seen it enough with his compatriots and their conquests in his former guard days.

Impossible, he’d thought then.

Impossible, he’d thought again when a couple days later she’d snuck out to meet him again and she placed a pale small hand on his thigh as she sat next to him in the dim restaurant where they’d run away for dinner.

And after, when he brought her back safely to the Tully estate, there were no more thoughts when she sank her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and reached on tip toes to tug him down into the sweet warmth of her mouth.

He forgot himself then, forgot they were in the open where anyone might see, forgot about his damned guilt, his vow not to touch her.

“Sandor,” she’d whispered against his lips, arms wrapped about his shoulders, her feet no longer touching the ground as he held her up against him. “I want you. I want you to make me feel what you made me feel that night…that morning actually…”

Clarity had hit him hard. He’d made to release her but she held him tighter.

“No, listen. I-I can’t sleep through the night without…What I’m trying to say is you’ve had more experience at-at this than I do. And I want to experience this again. With you. With you knowing that it’s me, Sansa, not someone else, just me…”

He'd kissed her. More gruffly than he intended to but she kissed him just as hard, teeth grazing his lips. Little wolf.  
He would have taken her with him that night if only her absence would not have caused the entire Riverlands to mount a search for her.

But the very next day, he moved from the inn and leased a spacious condo in a secluded suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of the Riverlands.

They met almost everyday after that.  
She made the temporary house feel like a true home, something he’d never experienced with the ancient Clegane manor.

And all his guilt about that night in the Summer Isles, which seemed so far away now, would flee when she looked at him.

In those hours she managed to escape her family and when he was not meeting with Bronn and the men Tyrion Lannister had enlisted to find the Mountain’s trail, they fucked, and watched bad TV, and laughed and read, and cooked. Well he mostly cooked after she baked a lasagna to a charcoal crisp. It was the first time he found amusement in something burned. It was sort of funny how she was a domestic little queen in everything except the kitchen.  
Used to cooking for himself, he found that he enjoyed cooking for someone else, for her, even though he’d swiftly learned that the smell of onions triggered her blossoming new nausea.

He didn’t want to think on how this new thing between them was temporary even if they did share this permanent connection. But he knew that she would come to her senses soon. Whatever this was wouldn’t last just because he wanted it to.

He had been her first no matter how accidently, and he supposed it was only natural that she wanted to explore her newfound sexuality with him. Or maybe it was some weird pregnancy craving, not that he was complaining.  
He was just selfish enough to be glad that he’d knocked her up.

That is, until he remembered just how young she was to be tied in that way to a brute like him. He’d been a complete stranger to her only two months ago.

Yet each time she left him to return to the Tully estate, he had to fight the urge to just throw her over his shoulder and run with her somewhere where no one would find them.

There was still the matter of his overzealous brother on the chase for his new bride. And his Lannister-fueled intent to murder her family.

The Mountain’s trail had gone cold as if he had terminated his hunt but Sandor knew better. He was ever on the alert and he made sure to meet Sansa each time she could get away.  
It bothered him that she had to sneak away from her mother and brother to be with him.

She shifted against him, nuzzling her face into his chest with a contented little sigh.

_Damn me, she looks so good here in my arms. Even in these fucked up, scarred up arms._

As sudden as a lightening flash that constantly lit the summer storms in the Westerlands, the idea struck him, knocking the breath from him.

Yet even as he thought of this potential solution, he felt a shiver of apprehension.

 

 


End file.
